More than 60 Australian health professors have signed a letter to Prime Minister Tony Abbott urging him to send troops and medical teams to West Africa to tackle the Ebola virus.

The letter, organised by the Public Health Association of Australia, says the outbreak which has already claimed more than 4000 lives is a "global health catastrophe" which must be tackled at its source.

The United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that the number of Ebola cases in Sierra Leone and Liberia is doubling every 20 days, and by January could reach 1.4 million cases on current trends.

In the letter to Mr Abbott, Public Health Association chief executive Michael Moore writes that while at least 70 per cent of Ebola patients need to be in treatment centres in order to control the epidemic, currently less than 20 per cent of Ebola patients are receiving care.

"This requires skilled personnel who can build hospitals, deliver care, provide security and manage the required logistics," Mr Moore writes.

The letter calls for Australia to deploy troops and Australian Medical Assistance Teams, including doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists and logisticians, which were sent to the Philippines last year following typhoon Haiyan.

"There are serious risks to Australia and other high-income countries from this outbreak, particularly if it were to spread into other populous countries in the region," the letter says. "We are all stakeholders in this epidemic and it is in our urgent national interest to contribute to the response with deployment of skilled personnel."

Australia has committed $18 million to efforts to fight Ebola, but has been criticised by aid organisations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and Save the Children for refusing to send medical personnel, engineers and logisticians to support their work.

Mr Abbott told reporters on Sunday his government would not send doctors and nurses to West Africa until it could be "absolutely confident that all of the risks are being properly managed".

Mr Abbott praised the "selfless humanitarianism" of Australians who were already working in West Africa for non-government organisations, but said it would be "irresponsible" for the government to send personnel to the region at this time.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has previously cited the government's inability to safely evacuate any Australian personnel who might be infected with the virus in West Africa.

But the letter says this was no reason for a "minimalist response," noting Britain was setting up treatment units in West Africa to care for international workers.

Those to sign the letter include University of Melbourne professor of public health Rob Moodie and University of Sydney professor of public health Simon Chapman.