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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/09/ebola-fears-woman-observation-cairns-hospital-sierra-leone
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| Ebola fears in Cairns for woman who treated patients in Sierra Leone | Ebola fears in Cairns for woman who treated patients in Sierra Leone |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A woman has undergone tests for Ebola in a Cairns hospital isolation unit. | |
| The 57-year-old woman who recently returned from Sierra Leone was under observation, Queensland’s chief health officer, Jeanette Young, confirmed. | The 57-year-old woman who recently returned from Sierra Leone was under observation, Queensland’s chief health officer, Jeanette Young, confirmed. |
| She had been in the west African country looking after Ebola patients for a month and returned to Australia on Tuesday, Young said. She was admitted to hospital with a “low-grade” fever on Thursday. | |
| The woman, a volunteer nurse with the Red Cross, had done “everything appropriately”. She had no symptoms when she returned to the country, developing the fever only on Thursday morning. | |
| Young emphasised there was no risk of infection for the public, as the woman had followed the correct protocols. | |
| “She has not been out in the community in Cairns, she has been at home, isolated in her own home, testing herself,” she said, | |
| Young said Ebola was contracted through contact with excretions such as blood, vomiting and diarrhea, and since the woman had exhibited none of those symptoms there was no risk she had infected anyone else, if she did have Ebola. | |
| Blood was taken from the woman on Thursday afternoon and flown to Brisbane for testing. The results would be known late on Thursday or in the early hours of Friday morning. | |
| “I think she’s an amazing lady to go to Africa and provide that service,” Young said of the woman. | |
| When asked how likely it was that the woman had the virus, Young said: “I am treating it as if it was, because I don’t know how likely it is. Because she has been in Sierra Leone looking after people sick with Ebola, there is potential there – that’s why we are treating it seriously.” | |
| Queensland health is also monitoring a doctor in home isolation in south Brisbane who has returned from treating Ebola patients overseas. | |
| Young said there was “absolutely no concerns” for any passengers who were on the same plane as the woman as she returned to Australia because she had no symptoms when she flew. | |
| “Ebola is very difficult to transmit, it’s not like flu,” she said. | |
| Australian quarantine officers have held six people suspected of having Ebola at airports after interviewing 651 travellers between August and 1 October as part of Australia’s efforts to keep the disease out of the country. | |
| Last month Queensland health authorities triggered contagious diseases protocols over a suspected Ebola case on the Gold Coast, but the man in question was cleared of having the virus. | Last month Queensland health authorities triggered contagious diseases protocols over a suspected Ebola case on the Gold Coast, but the man in question was cleared of having the virus. |