Ebola outbreak: Sierra Leone angry at Australia visa ban

Sierra Leone has condemned Australia's decision to suspend entry visas for people from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa as "counterproductive" and "discriminatory".

The move has also been criticised by Amnesty International.

And UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said travel restrictions will severely curtail efforts to beat Ebola.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison: "These measures include temporarily suspending our immigration programme... from EBV affected countries"

Nearly 5,000 people have died from the virus, the vast majority of them in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

In other developments:

• Eighty-two people who had contact with a toddler who died in Mali are now being monitored
• A Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola in the US from a Liberian patient but is now free of the virus has been discharged from hospital
• New US federal guidelines say medics returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa should be monitored but not placed in quarantine - but some states say they will continue with their quarantine polices
• President Barack Obama has said policy for returning medics should be based on science and not fear - he said it was important not to discourage US frontline workers from fighting Ebola
• Separately, the US Army has imposed a 21-day monitoring period for all soldiers returning from the region

'Protect Australians'

The Australian government announced on Monday that it was cancelling non-permanent or temporary visas held by people from the affected countries who were not yet travelling, and that new visa applications would not be processed.

Permanent visa holders yet to arrive in Australia must undergo a 21-day quarantine process before departure.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told parliament: "The government's systems and processes are working to protect Australians."

But Sierra Leone's Information Minister Alpha Kanu described the move as "too draconian", insisting that measures put in place at Sierra Leone's Freetown airport had successfully prevented anyone flying out of the country with Ebola.

"It is discriminatory in that... it is not [going] after Ebola but rather it is... [going] against the 24 million citizens of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Certainly, it is not the right way to go," he told Reuters news agency. "This measure by the Australian government is absolutely counterproductive."