Ebola virus disease is a severe and often fatal illness. There is no specific treatment and outbreaks have a mortality rate of up to 90%.

AUTHORITIES are performing tests for the deadly Ebola virus on a Queensland woman who recently returned from Sierra Leone.

Nurse Sue-Ellen Kovack, 57, recently returned to Cairns from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone for a month.

She is being assessed at Cairns Base Hospital.

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said Ms Kovack had placed herself in quarantine.

She exhibited no symptoms until she recorded her own temperature and recorded an increase.

Health authorities are now performing tests.

They hope to have the result later today.

Ms Kovack left for Sierra Leone in September. She told The Cairns Post before she left that she was anxious about the trip.

“I’m a little bit nervous, a little bit anxious but healthily anxious I think,” she told the Post.

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Red Cross volunteer admitted to Cairns Hospital Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young said the woman is a Red Cross volunteer who was working in Sierra Leone had developed a low grade fever and has been admitted to the Cairns Hospital.

Ms Kovack is a remote health nurse, flying to isolated communities in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, Cape York, and more recently, the Cocos Islands.

She started volunteering with the Red Cross in 2000 when she was deployed to war-torn South Sudan, and then Sierra Leone in 2002.

Ms Young told a media conference that “as recommended by national guidelines, this patient has been isolating herself at home and checking her temperature twice daily since her return, and today has reported an elevated temperature of 37.6C.

“She has recently spent one month in Sierra Leone in an ebola hospital working as a nurse.

“She was there on behalf of the Red Cross.

“She returned to Australia on the weekend and has been in Cairns from Tuesday.’’

Dr Young said Ms Kovack has not been out in the Cairns community and had kept herself isolated since arriving home.

She has a flatmate that has shared her home with her.

“Her risk of infecting someone else is very, very low,” Dr Young said.

“There is absolutely no concern for any passenger or any plane she has been on ... There is no risk at all.”

A sample of Ms Kovack’s blood has been taken and is on it’s way to Brisbane to be tested for ebola and other diseases.

Dr Young said the results should be back late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

Ms Kovack is in isolation and has a low grade fever but is not feeling unwell.

Dr Young said it was protocol for the nurse to be in home isolation for 21 days and checking her temperature twice a day because she had been working in West Africa.

Last month, Brisbane doctor Jenny Stedmon revealed her first-hand experience treating Ebola and shared the emotional toll the deadly disease has taken on her.

Dr Stedmon was placed in 21-day quarantine at her home after returning from Sierra Leone.

Dr Young was full of praise for Ms Kovack.

“I think she’s an amazing lady to go to West Africa and provide that service.”

“Importantly, she has reported that while in Sierra Leone strict Personal Protective Equipment procedures were followed at all times and were not breached at any stage,” Dr Young said.

“However, as her temperature does demonstrate a low-grade fever which can be symptomatic of Ebola virus disease, all necessary precautions are being taken.”

Dr Young stressed that the public would not be at risk if the Ms Kovack did test positive for Ebola.

“While Ebola is a very serious disease, it is not highly contagious as it cannot be caught through coughing or sneezing; a person is not infectious until they are unwell with the disease.”

A person must be directly exposed to the bodily fluids, such as blood, diarrhoea or vomit, of a person with Ebola to catch the disease.

Dr Young said Cairns Hospital was prepared for any scenario.

Health Minister and Queensland MP Peter Dutton insists that talking to people arriving from Ebola-hit countries is the best screening method for the deadly disease at the moment.

Outspoken federal MP Bob Katter, whose electorate of Kennedy includes the southern area of Cairns and the Cairns airport, has slammed quarantine authorities for letting Ms Kovack return home.

Mr Katter said it was “unbelievable and incomprehensive” someone could get into Australia from an Ebola-infected country.

“If you want to go to one of these countries, however laudable your motivation, I am sorry, but when you return to Australia, you must be quarantined for three weeks - not home quarantined,” he said.

But Mr Dutton said doctors believed the best method for now was to identify and contact people arriving from the Ebola-stricken countries.

“I think that’s the more effective screening process at the moment, but these things evolve,” he told the ABC.

Introducing a screening in arrivals halls could be problematic, he said.

“It provides a sort of air of complacency if you like,” he told the ABC.

“So people come through, they feel unwell a couple of days later and they think `no, no, I’ve just been through that screening process and I wasn’t picked up, I’m OK’.”