Australian-run Ebola centre to be open within three weeks

Australian doctors at an Ebola treatment facility in Sierra Leone will treat their first patients within three weeks.

Aspen Medical was awarded $20 million in federal funding earlier this month to run a 100-bed British military field hospital in Sierra Leone, and co-founder Dr Andrew Walker says construction will be completed by the end of November.

"We expect to be seeing first patients through the treatment unit around December 9," he told reporters in Darwin today.

He expects there will be 380 staff at the facility at any given time, rotating on a maximum deployment period of three months, ending with a 21-day quarantine.

They will be trained by Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) in a 10 to 14 day-program before they can treat patients independently.

Many of the staff, especially junior staff, will be local Sierra Leoneans or from the region.

He couldn't say how many of the staff would be Australian, but said it could be up to 100 during the early stages of operation.

The facility isn't expected to reach capacity until well after the December 9 opening date, Dr Walker said.