Australia refuses to issue visas from Ebola-hit West Africa
Australia has become the first major Western nation to impose a blanket ban on issuing visas from West African nationals affected by the Ebola outbreak.
Although there have been some scares, no positive Ebola cases have been reported down under and the decision has sparked condemnation for being short sighted and counterproductive.
It will refuse entry to anyone from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia calling the move a necessary safety precaution.
"The government has strong controls for the entry of persons to Australia under our immigration programme from West Africa," said Immigration Minister Scott Morrison in the Australian parliament.
"These measures include temporarily suspending our immigration programe, including our humanitarian program from Ebola-affected countries, and this means we are not processing any application from these affected countries."
Dr Adam Kamradt-Scott, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity said it will needlessly raise fears and create a climate of panic.
"This is purely just a political decision, there is very little scientific evidence or medical rationale why you would choose to do this and this is the type of politics we find starts to interfere with effective public health measures."
Graham Thom, spokesman for Amnesty International Australia said: "There are ways and means in which people can be monitored, quarantined to insure that those who come are free from the disease but all this does is insure that already exceedingly vulnerable people are trapped in a crisis area and sends a signal about Australia’s commitment to actually dealing with this crisis in a responsible way."
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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