The federal government insists it is ready to help regional neighbours combat any Ebola outbreak, despite not having provided Ebola-specific training to its emergency medical teams.
Australia's chief medical officer, Chris Baggoley, told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that Australian medical assistance teams - health workers and logisticians that were deployed to the Philippines last year to provide care following typhoon Haiyan - have not been trained in treating Ebola, nor in using personal protective equipment to prevent infections from patients.
Professor Baggoley told the hearing it could take "up to two weeks" to prepare these teams to deploy overseas to combat an Ebola outbreak.
Health Minister Peter Dutton later said the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre in Darwin had trained staff in Ebola protective equipment, who could be deployed at short notice.
"A team of 20 health workers can be dispatched from Australia as a first immediate response to our regional neighbours should there be an Ebola outbreak and should Australia be asked to help," Mr Dutton said.
These included doctors and nurses who were vaccinated and heat-acclimatised for a four-week deployment, and could be sent from Darwin, he said.
Rejecting suggestions that Australia was underprepared for the virus reaching the Asia-Pacific region, Mr Dutton insisted "Australia is ready and able to assist our neighbouring countries across our region should this terrible disease appear here".
Earlier, Greens senator Richard Di Natale said Professor Baggoley's evidence showed Australia was "sitting on its hands".
Senator Di Natale noted that Prime Minister Tony Abbott had visited Papua New Guinea on Sunday to reassure PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill that Australia would rapidly deploy health workers to support its regional neighbours to fight Ebola if required.
"We had the Prime Minister go to PNG on his way to Indonesia and state that ... we're ready to help, should there be an outbreak on our doorstep. Today at Senate estimates we heard that the people that would need to be involved in containing that epidemic don't have the training they need. They haven't been sent for the intensive training that's required to ensure that they're able to combat Ebola, which requires very specific skills and expertise," he said.
In a separate hearing, Defence Force Vice Chief Ray Griggs said the military was drawing up plans to transport potential Ebola victims back to Australia from within the Asia-Pacific region.
Vice Admiral Griggs said by the end of November Defence expected to have the capacity to evacuate people within five hours' flying time of Australia's north using C-130 and C-17 aircraft fitted with isolation pods.
Meanwhile, a dozen Australian humanitarian organisations have called on the Abbott government to do more to combat the Ebola crisis in West Africa, which has already claimed more than 4500 lives.
The Australian government's contribution to international efforts to fight Ebola has been limited to a financial contribution of $18 million.
But in a statement issued by the Australian Council for International Development, 12 Australian aid agencies including World Vision, Care Australia and Oxfam call for Australia to deploy personnel, provide equipment and training, and support preparedness and contingency planning efforts.
"The world is fast approaching a point of no return in halting the spread of Ebola. Current estimates indicate that we could see 10,000 new cases per week by mid-December. Should global efforts at this stage fail to increase in both pace and effort, the long-term consequences in West Africa and beyond will be catastrophic," said Marc Purcell, the council's executive director.
