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         Australia Visa Ban for Ebola-affected Countries Is Criticized

   by Ron Corben

   Humanitarian groups in Australia are criticizing the government's
   policy to impose a blanket ban on visas for citizens of the three West
   African nations affected by the Ebola virus outbreak.

   The new policy cancels non-permanent or temporary visas for travelers
   from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

   Permanent visa holders who have not yet arrived in Australia are being
   asked to submit to a 21-day quarantine period.

   Announced by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, the policy makes
   Australia the first wealthy nation to close its immigration doors in
   response to the Ebola outbreak.

   No cases in country

   Despite some suspected cases, medical authorities say there have been
   no confirmed Ebola cases in Australia.

   The visa ban has triggered widespread criticism from aid groups and
   professional health workers who call the response to the outbreak
   "narrow."

   Health workers said the country has monitoring and quarantine policies
   in place that will protect against Ebola's spread, without stoking
   public fears over travel bans.

   The World Health Organization has recommended against imposing travel
   or trade bans on the affected nations, arguing that those nations are
   in need of international help, not isolation, to defeat the outbreak.

   However, several other countries in Africa and the Caribbean have also
   toughened entry rules or banned visas for travelers from the three
   worst-affected countries.

   U.S. President Barack Obama and United Nations Secretary General Ban
   Ki-moon have appealed to Australia to send personnel to fight the
   spreading Ebola virus.

   So far the country has donated aid but not medical workers. The
   government said it resisted sending personnel because of the long,
   30-hour journey back to Australia for ill patients.

   Nurse to be released

   Also on Tuesday, Amber Vinson, a Texas nurse who contracted Ebola in
   the United States, will be released from Emory University Hospital in
   Atlanta on Tuesday after being found free of the virus, the hospital
   said.

   Vinson was one of two nurses at a Dallas hospital who had treated
   Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian visiting Texas who died of Ebola on Oct.
   8 and was the first patient diagnosed with the virus in the United
   States.

   She was admitted to Emory's hospital for treatment on Oct. 15. The
   other nurse, Nina Pham, also was declared virus-free last week and left
   the Maryland hospital where she had been treated.

   Vinson was due to make a statement at a news conference on Tuesday
   afternoon.

   Kaci Hickox, a nurse who was confined against her will at a hospital in
   New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in West Africa, is back home
   in Maine, where state officials said she's agreed to be quarantined,
   officials said Tuesday.

   Vaccine trial

   The Swiss agency that regulates new drugs said Tuesday it has approved
   an application for a clinical trial with an experimental Ebola vaccine
   at the Lausanne University Hospital, The Associated Press reported.

   Swissmedic said the trial will be conducted among 120 volunteer
   participants with support from the U.N. World Health Organization.

   The experimental vaccine is to be initially administered on healthy
   volunteers who will be sent as medical staff to fight the Ebola
   epidemic in West Africa.

   Some material for this report came from Reuters and AP.

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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/ebola-outbreak-australia-visa-ban-cri
   ticized/2499142.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/ebola-outbreak-australia-visa-ban-criticized/2499142.html