Australia bans travel from Ebola-hit countries; U.S. isolates troops

Freetown; Sierra Leone: Australia became the first developed country on Tuesday to shut its borders to citizens of the country’s worst-hit by the West African Ebola outbreak, a move those states said stigmatized healthy people and would make it harder to fight the disease.

Australia's ban on visas for citizens of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea followed decisions by the U.S. military to quarantine soldiers returning from an Ebola response mission and some U.S. states to isolate aid workers. The United Nations said such measures could discourage vital relief work, making it harder to stop the spread of the deadly virus.