IT’S deadly, it’s on the loose, and Australian health authorities are concerned the frightening disease ebola could be headed our way.

Customs and border security around the nation have been placed on red alert following the rapid spread of ebola, a highly infectious disease that has killed almost 700 people across several west African countries.

The federal government’s chief health experts met with border protection agencies on Tuesday to formulate a plan to ramp up the monitoring of incoming passengers at airports, as the world’s leading health authorities expressed concern that the disease could leapfrog out of Africa for the first time.

TOP EBOLA DOCTOR DIES FROM VIRUS

media_camera The Daily Telegraph.

That bolstering of security was followed by a meeting of the Communicable Diseases Network of Australia yesterday, headed by Australia’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Baggoley, key infectious diseases doctors, and all state and territory health authorities. Professor Baggoley told The Daily Telegraph delegates had discussed the possibility of the disease reaching Australia and how to respond.

“Everyone is on alert, and we have the best border protection for infectious disease system in the world,’’ he said.

media_camera A close-up of the ebola virus.

More than 200 Australians have registered with the government’s Smartraveller website as currently travelling or working in the African nations affected by the outbreak, with the majority based in Nigeria.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said the government had been in contact with each of those travellers and expats to update them with the latest information on ebola.

Meanwhile, the UK had a scare with the disease when a man who had flown from Nigeria to Birmingham via Paris was rushed to hospital with ebola -type symptoms. He was given the all-clear last night

Health authorities met with British Prime Minister David Cameron and detailed their grim assessment of the threat to the country with Dr Brian McCloskey, the director of global health at Public Health England, describing the outbreak as the most “acute health emergency” currently facing Britain.

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media_camera A 10-year-old Liberian boy is showered after being taken out of ebola quarantine following his mother's death / Picture: AFP

ANGELS OF MERCY HIT IN AFRICAN HOT ZONE

Ebola is a highly contagious virus with a 90 percent mortality rate.

Alexander Khromykh, Professor of Molecular Virology at the University of Queensland said there is no treatment for the virus.

“It is initially flu-like symptoms and a runny nose then it develops into a haemorrhagic disease which includes bleeding in the eyes, internal organs and skin haemorrhages.’’

Ebola is transferred between humans via bodily fluids. It could be as simple as wiping a tear off a person’s face or as intimate as the transfer of saliva or semen.

Frighteningly, the virus can still be transferred once a person has died.

The virus is formed in fruit bats, often transferred to monkeys by contaminated fruit they eat before humans become the “accidental carriers” of the virus. A human can contract it by eating monkey meat or bats in African nations or if bitten by the animals.

This outbreak is the worst in the history of the disease and has claimed a top ebola specialist, while a doctor and a missionary both from the US are fighting for their lives.

Sierra Leone’s chief ebola expert Dr Sheik Humarr Khan was confirmed dead by health ministry officials.

Dr Khan had treated more than 100 patients with the disease and had been praised as a national hero in Sierra Leone.

media_camera A health agent checks a passenger leaving Guinea / Picture: AFP

Another medic, Texas-trained missionary Kent Brantly, is fighting for his life in an isolation unit on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, after contracting the disease.

Dr David Mcray, a director at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, where Brantly completed a four-year residency, said Dr Brantly’s prognosis was grave.

Missionary Nancy Writebol, 60, remains in quarantine after contracting Ebola in Liberia.

Meanwhile, pan-African airline ASKY announced it would suspend flights to and from the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The move follows the death of one of its passengers from the virus after he had travelled from Liberia to Nigeria.

The 40-year-old man died in Lagos on Friday in Nigeria’s first confirmed ebola death.

ASKY also announced it would screen all passengers travelling from Guinea.

Nigerian carrier Arik also said it was halting direct flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The virus, hitchhiking across borders for the first time aboard airliners, could spell new flight restrictions aimed at containing outbreaks, the International Civil Aviation Organisation Secretary General Raymond Benjamin said.

media_camera Authorities are worried the disease could spread to Australia / Picture: AFP

NO CURE FOR FATAL INFECTION

Ebola: How the Virus Could Spread Beyond Africa The worst ebola outbreak in history has prompted Liberian officials to close their borders, as the governments in several West African countries raced to convince many of their citizens that ebola is a real disease. What is Ebola? How is it spread? WSJ’s Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer

Professor Cameron Simmons, a molecular biologist and infectious disease expert at the University of Melbourne, maintains the threat of an epidemic beyond the disease’s traditional shores of Africa hinges on whether one ebola case was contained in the city of Lagos.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned the virus was out of control.

With fear mounting of a possible outbreak, he is to chair a crisis response committee to cope with the threat of the deadly virus.

”As far as we are aware, there are no British nationals so far affected by this outbreak,” he said last night.

Liberian finance ministry employee Patrick Sawyer died in the Nigerian port city of Lagos last week after contracting the disease from his sister. Despite showing early symptoms, Mr Sawyer flew on a commercial flight from Liberia to Nigeria, via Togo, dying five days later in Africa’s most populous city.

media_camera The Arwa clinic, closed after the clinic’s doctor became infected by the ebola virus in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone / Picture: AFP

“If ebola got into one of those high-density, low-­socio-economic urban hubs like Lagos, it would be pretty difficult to stop,’’ Professor Simmons said.

“Whether it comes to Australia, you never say zero, but a sensible risk assessment of the likelihood of ebola presenting to health care practitioners is remote.

“But nonetheless the medical community and health agencies need to be aware and heightened when it comes to seeing a patient with fever in someone from west Africa or with a recent travel history.’’

The outbreak of ebola, a virus that causes victims to eventually bleed profusely from the eyes, mouth and ears, is by far the worst on ­record.

Queensland University’s Alexander Khromykh, a professor of molecular virology, urged Australian authorities to provide adequate screening at airports to prevent the spread of the disease, on to the continent, despite maintaining the risk to Australia was “low”.

“(Increased detection at airports) wouldn’t hurt, much like the measures that were taken when SARS started,” he said.

Temperature scans would be necessary.

Originally published as Australia on red alert for killer ebola