Is this Australiaâ€™s Ebola patient zero?

A picture from Sue Ellen Kovack's Facebook page. Source: Supplied

A CAIRNS nurse who recently returned from Ebola-ravaged West Africa will this morning discover whether she has been infected with the deadly virus.

Sue Ellen Kovack, 57, had been working as a nurse for a month in an Ebola hospital in Sierra Leone on behalf of the Red Cross and has been in home isolation since her return to Cairns.

She returned to Australia at the weekend and arrived home to north Queensland on Tuesday.

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Ms Kovack presented to the Cairns Hospital's emergency department with a low-grade fever at 1pm yesterday and was immediately transferred to an isolation room where monitoring by an infectious disease specialist began.

If Ms Kovack's test results are positive for Ebola it will be the first case of the disease in Australia.

Queensland health authorities are investigating another suspected Ebola case.

While fever was the first symptom of Ebola, chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young moved to quell any fears that anyone was at risk, even if Ms Kovack did have the disease.

"There is no need for any community concern at all because this particular individual has only recently got any sort of symptom and she's been in her own home, isolated there, so there is absolutely no risk for the general community in Cairns," she said.

Ms Kovack did not have any symptoms when she first arrived home in Australia.

Aside from a temperature of 37.6C when she arrived at the hospital, Dr Young said the nurse was feeling well. The usual temperature for an adult is 37C.

A sample of her blood was flown to Brisbane yesterday afternoon to a specialist waiting to conduct the tests which were expected to take four hours. The results were not expected to be known until early this morning.

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While Ms Kovack had been living in isolation with a flatmate and had travelled with other people on the planes from Africa, Dr Young said these people were not at risk.

"Ebola virus is very difficult to transmit, it's not like the flu or measles, it's not transmitted through the air. You need to be exposed to secretions. So that is vomit, diarrhoea, blood … she doesn't have any symptoms producing those secretions so therefore her risk of infecting someone else is very, very low."

Dr Young said the nurse followed the protocol for medical staff treating Ebola sufferers in Africa by isolating herself for 21 days after she arrived home and taking her temperature twice a day.

"She's done everything appropriately," Dr Young said.

Ms Kovack is a remote health nurse who travels to isolated communities in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, Cape York and Cocos Island.

She has previously worked for the Red Cross in 2000 in South Sudan and in Sierra Leone in 2002.

Dr Young said that if Ms Kovack was confirmed to be suffering from Ebola, Queensland Health would endeavour to provide her with the best treatment.

"We will work through what is best for her, this is all then about what is the best treatment that we could give her," she said.

Dr Young said that given where Ms Kovack had been working there was obviously potential for her to test positive. "I am treating it as if it was (Ebola) because I don't know how likely it is … so there is the potential there so that's why we're treating this so seriously.

"I'm absolutely confident with all of the processes that we have in place, and that Cairns Hospital has in place, that there is no risk to anyone in that community or any staff in that hospital."

Ms Kovack's blood sample will be tested at Forensic and Scientific Services at Coopers Plains in Brisbane's south.

Dr Young praised Ms Kovack for her bravery in going to West Africa.

"I think she's an amazing lady to go to Africa and provide that service."

From Sierra Leone on September 26, Ms Kovack wrote on Facebook that she'd reached a "pivotal moment" in her career:

On September 30, she posted pictures of herself in the personal protective equipment that aid workers must wear.

Before she left for Africa, Ms Kovack revealed she was anxious about the trip.

"I just think everything I've done in my career so far has led me to this,'' she said.

"I'm a humanist at heart and it's a big world out there with a lot of issues.

"People put up their hands because they have an interest in their fellow man, that's why I'm going."

This latest scare comes after a man was tested for Ebola at the Gold Coast Hospital when he claimed to be ill after returning from Africa.

Brisbane doctor Jenny Stedmon remains in home isolation in south Brisbane after her stint treating Ebola patients with the Red Cross.

Queensland Health has specialist isolation rooms in major hospitals.

The latest report from the World Health Organisation shows almost 4000 people have died in the current outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – there have also been cases in Nigeria.

The first Ebola patient diagnosed in the US, Thomas Eric Duncan, has died. Source: AP

Fear spreads as fast as virus

FEAR has gripped the US following the death of the first person in the country to be diagnosed with Ebola virus – a situation Australian experts want to avoid here.

Australians have an extremely low risk of contracting the virus. It is neither highly contagious, nor is it an airborne disease.

"Ebola is not easily transmissible,'' said Dr Enzo Binotto, director of infectious diseases at Cairns Hospital.

"We've got good infection controls. We got strict measures. Testing has been done.''

Dr Binotto, a world-renowned specialist, said heightened anxiety about Ebola was an understandable and normal reaction.

Reports of victims bleeding from the eyes and organs liquefying in the deadly outbreak added to the fear and hysteria.

"Ebola is an unknown,'' Dr Binotto said.

"But we don't expect the problems we're seeing in Africa in a developed nation like Australia where we can test people and quickly contain it.''

Infectious diseases specialist Andrew Redmond in a high containment room at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. Source: News Corp Australia

Health experts warn that Ebola, a disease that has a relatively low transmission rate, has spread dramatically in West Africa because it is in a region where people are malnourished, with poor shelter and no access to adequate healthcare.

Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, died yesterday in the Texas hospital where he had been admitted last week after exhibiting symptoms of the virus.

Duncan (pictured) had travelled from Liberia but lied on immigration forms about whether he had been in contact with anyone in Africa suffering the disease.

The Washington Post has reported that people around the US have been reporting to doctors worried about their risk.

Authorities are now engaged in a huge campaign to explain to Americans the way the virus works and that they are highly unlikely to have or contract the disease at home.

"This is both a biological plague and a psychological one, and fear can spread even faster than the virus," The Post noted on its front page.

A member of Doctors Without Borders at an Ebola isolation ward in Guinea, West Africa. Source: AFP

Australian doctors said fear of Ebola eclipsed other health crises around the world, including tuberculosis and AIDS, while diarrhoea, a preventable and treatable condition, still kills 1.5 million children each year.

"It is not a time for panic or overreaction,'' said Australian Medical Association president Associate Professor Brian Owler.

"Both the Australian Chief Medical Officer and the Queensland Chief Health Officer have given assurances that all the correct procedures have been undertaken to contain any infection or contamination, if indeed it is Ebola."

Prof Owler said the nurse and other aid workers should be praised for their efforts to help Ebola victims.

"They have selflessly gone to Africa to help thousands of poor suffering people who are trapped in one of the greatest humanitarian crises facing the world,'' he said.