Government health workers are seen during the administration of blood tests for the Ebola virus in Kenema, Sierra Leone, June 25, 2014.
Government health workers are seen during the administration of blood tests for the Ebola virus in Kenema, Sierra Leone, June 25, 2014. REUTERS REUTERS/Umaru Fofana

African Australians are being shunned and abused due to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The NSW Anti-Discrimination Board revealed that Australians with African descent are being discriminated against for fear of Ebola.

According to Stepan Kerkaysharian, president of the Anti-Discrimination Board, they have received reports of African Australians being asked to leave or stay away. He said they are being subject to discrimination because other people think African Australians have the "illness," ABC reported.

Kerkaysharian suggested that there is a need to address Australia's racist attitudes as more incidents are being reported in urban and rural areas. He reiterated that Ebola does not have racial boundaries as it can be transmitted to anyone regardless of the race.

The World Health Organisation said Ebola has killed 7,000 people in West African countries with most of the deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Border security measures are in Australian airports and in other countries to prevent Ebola from spreading.

Meanwhile, UN Ebola chief Dr David Nabarro said it would take more months to control the Ebola outbreak as the agency has found its goal of isolating all Ebola cases by Jan 1 will not be achieved. He explained that there has been a "massive shift" in the way government affected by the disease have responded to Ebola.

However, Nabarro insists that greater effort is needed to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone and northern Mali, ABC News reported. WHO has admitted that it didn't meet its target of isolating at least 70 percent of Ebola patients, including the burial of 70 percent of dead patients safely in Sierra Leone.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the Ebola outbreak may be under control sometime in 2015. Nabarro said in a meeting between the UN and the business community to be prepared for the ups and downs brought by the outbreak.

The Ebola vaccine trial has been recently suspended due to complaints of joint pain in some volunteers. According to NBC News, Swiss researchers stopped one of the ongoing trials as a precaution after 59 people were vaccinated. In a statement by the University of Geneva Hospital, the vaccine used was developed from an animal virus known as the vesicular stomach virus or VSV. The vaccine undergoing human trials was developed by U.S. and Canadian scientists and licenced to Newlink Genetics Corp.