Australia to stop visa requests from Ebola-affected countries

Sydney, Oct 27 (IANS/EFE) The Australian government has stopped visa requests from Ebola-affected countries to help prevent its outbreak in the country, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told Parliament Monday.

"We are cancelling and refusing non-permanent or temporary visas for persons from Ebola-infected countries who haven't departed yet for Australia," said Scott, according to radio station ABC.

"These measures include temporarily suspending our immigration programme, including our humanitarian programme, from EVD (Ebola Virus Disease)-affected countries," added Scott.

The announcement came the same day Australian health services reported the negative outcome of the analyses of a young woman who had arrived in the country recently from West Africa.

The patient, suffering from fever, was placed in quarantine Sunday in a hospital in Brisbane 12 days after her arrival.

It was the second case of possible contagion in Australia after the test results of an Australian nurse who worked as a volunteer in Sierra Leone, submitted earlier this month, was negative.

So far, the Ebola outbreak is concentrated in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone where nearly 10,000 people have been infected and more than 4,900 have died.

--IANS/EFE

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