Foreign minister Julie Bishop has expressed concern about the Ebola virus outbreak at a UN Security Council meeting she chaired on the disease.

“The Security Council reiterates its grave concern about the unprecedented extent of the Ebola outbreak in Africa, which constitutes a threat to international peace and security, and the impact of the Ebola virus on West Africa, in particular, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone,” Ms Bishop said overnight in New York.

• Ebola centre to be run by Australians
• World-wide Ebola death toll rises beyond 5000
• Band-Aid releases: Do they know it’s Christmas?

She also warned that gains made to date could easily be reversed.

The debate came as an Australian company prepared to open a treatment facility in Sierra Leone, with doctors likely to treat their first patients within weeks.

But Labor says the government is being hypocritical for saying one thing in New York but doing the opposite in Australia.

“Isn’t it extraordinary to see our foreign minister … lecturing the world on Ebola when Australia has been so slow to act, dragged kicking and screaming to doing anything,” Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek told reporters in Sydney.

“I think this is an example where deeds matter more than words and our deeds so far have been inadequate.”

Labor and non-government organisations have long been calling for specialist teams to be sent to West Africa.

“For months now the government has been ignoring those pleas,” Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite told Sky News.

“It’s taken them too long to take action on this issue.

“The hypocrisy of this government knows no bounds.

“They say one thing in New York and do the complete opposite here in Australia.”

The head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) warned the meeting by videoconference link that there was still “a long battle ahead of us”.

Fighting the epidemic “is going to require a tremendous increase in resources on the ground, in a dispersed geographic area”, Anthony Banbury said.

Last week, 533 new cases were reported in Sierra Leone, the highest weekly tally since the outbreak hit there, although recent data has shown a decline in cases in Liberia, the worst-hit country, and Guinea.

Aspen Medical was awarded $20 million in federal funding earlier this month to run a 100-bed British-built military field hospital in Sierra Leone.

On Friday co-founder Dr Andrew Walker said construction was expected to be completed by the end of November.