It looks important, but no one collects it The new Ebola screening form that no one collects. Hundreds of thousands of passengers arriving from overseas are filling out new Ebola screening forms that no one is collecting, despite the Coalition's pledge to cut red tape if elected. The travel history cards are part of new measures announced earlier this month to combat Ebola. Passengers are required to complete it along with the regular incoming passenger card and hand them in at customs. But if travellers use the smart gate system, the forms are not collected and there are no signs or verbal instructions telling passengers why their forms have not been collected, Fairfax Media has learnt. On Friday, the first contingent of Australian health-care workers left for West Africa to work in an Australian government-funded treatment centre. The initial group of 17 Australians - six doctors, eight nurses, three environmental health officers - will work alongside about 200 Sierra Leonean staff in the British-built facility at Hastings airfield, near Freetown. There have now been more than 15,350 reported Ebola cases since the outbreak began and 5459 reported deaths, according to the latest situation report from the World Health Organisation. So far 588 health care workers have been infected. The risk of Ebola transmission is low as it is only spread by contact with bodily fluids, but authorities have been hampered by a lack of resources for medical specialists. However, on Friday the US National Institutes of Health said the first human trials of an experimental Ebola vaccine, which was given to 20 healthy volunteers, had showed signs of successfully creating an immune response. Lisa Watts, 35, flew home from Los Angeles earlier this month and filled in her Ebola screening as requested on the plane, but says no-one asked for the form. "I went straight from smart gate through customs and they just looked at my normal arrival card and said 'see you later'," she said. It could be that they looked at my flight number and saw that I was low risk, but that being the case why hand the forms out in the first place? If you're going to expend the resources, you may as well collect them," she said. Ms Watts says she has since thrown out her form as she knows there is no way she could have contracted Ebola overseas. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has repeatedly pledged to wind back red tape and has even dedicated two days of Parliament each year to repealing unnecessary regulations. But Immigration Minister Scott Morrison defended asking passengers to complete forms no one collects, saying they could not be considered a major burden on people's lives. "The request to notify border officers of these issues by completing the form is not unreasonable given people arriving in Australia after lengthy flights have ample opportunity and time to complete the form," he said. He said the screening forms were a "temporary common sense measure to respond to a very real health issue."