Liberian Red Cross health workers wearing protective suits carry the body of victim of the Ebola virus on September 12, 2014 in a district of Monrovia.ZOOM DOSSO/AFP / Getty Images
Ottawa has no plans to send a military response team to help tackle the Ebola crisis in West Africa, despite growing calls from health workers and non-governmental organizations for Canada and others to step in with a large-scale medical response.
The federal government announced this week that it would offer $2.5-million in personal protective equipment for medical staff working in the affected areas, and it has provided an experimental vaccine and a mobile laboratory. But Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders), the NGO that's handling a majority of the known cases in West Africa, says more help is needed – both from Canada and other countries – to bring the unprecedented crisis under control.
Stephen Cornish, executive director for MSF Canada, said there is an urgent need for governments to send teams to treat patients, train local staff and help set up new medical facilities.
"That an organization – an independent medical organization – is carrying about two-thirds of the burden of a regional outbreak that requires an international response seems somehow abhorrent," Mr. Cornish said in an interview on Tuesday. "There's no way that we can shoulder that burden of responsibility to that degree."
Opposition MPs in Canada have called on the Conservative government to send in the military's Disaster Assistance Response Team, known as DART, which specializes in responding to natural disasters and complex humanitarian emergencies.
However, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Tuesday that sending the military to assist with the crisis is "not being considered at this time."
It was not immediately clear if the government would consider sending a different team, from outside the military, to help with health care and facilities.
Health Minister Rona Ambrose said during Question Period that Canada's response to the crisis so far has been based on discussions with World Health Organization head Margaret Chan. Ms. Ambrose added that she expects to meet in two weeks with the Global Health Security Initiative, an informal partnership that includes Canada, the United States, France and others, and is focused on addressing threats to public health.
Keith Martin, a former Liberal MP who now directs the Consortium of Universities for Global Health in Washington, said Canada could play a vital role by providing medical teams and public-health support, adding that the military's heavy-lift capacity could help bring medical supplies where they're needed.
Mr. Cornish said it doesn't matter whether Canada sends DART or finds the resources to send a team from somewhere else – as long as more substantial medical and facility-building help is provided. He said the Canadian government has made an important contribution to the crisis so far, but has the capacity and the responsibility as a member of the G7 to do more.
"Those capacities exist," he said. "It's a matter of 'Do they have to assemble them into a new group that doesn't formally exist or do they have to send a group that they're discussing and train them appropriately.' These are questions that are up to the government to decide. But it seems to us that certainly all the G7 countries and some others have the types of skill sets that are required."
Canada's most prominent contribution so far to the fight against Ebola in West Africa has been its offer of as many as 1,000 doses of an experimental vaccine developed at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, but the doses are still months away from making it to the front lines of the crisis.
Although Ottawa has only dispatched a handful of people to the crisis zone, there are other Canadians battling the virus in West Africa. MSF, for example, has dispatched a total of 20 Canadians to West Africa since the crisis began.
Twelve are on the ground now. The organization's international president is a Canadian, Dr. Joanne Liu.