Advertisement

Australian tests negative for Ebola after Sierra Leone trip

Sydney (AFP) - Initial Ebola tests on an Australian woman suffering from a fever following her return from a month working with patients of the virus in Sierra Leone have come back negative, officials said on Friday.

Queensland state chief health officer Jeanette Young said the 57-year-old volunteer Red Cross nurse would remain in observation in hospital in Cairns, northeast Australia, for at least 24 hours as a precautionary measure.

"For the sake of her health and to follow due diligence, we want to be sure she is clear of Ebola virus disease as well as any other disease," Young said in a statement.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said the result was encouraging but that the World Health Organisation required three full days of negative tests.

"Let's keep our fingers crossed for the patient involved," he told reporters in Canberra.

The woman had developed a "low-grade fever" on Thursday morning and was put into isolation at Cairns Hospital.

Named as Sue-Ellen Kovack by local media, she had returned to Australia at the weekend.

Kovack had been at home in line with government policy that anyone who may have had contact with Ebola patients must abide by a 21-day incubation period alone at home.

Australia has seen a handful of people displaying symptoms of Ebola following trips to Africa, but none have so far proved positive.

Ebola is not contagious until symptoms appear.

The world's largest outbreak of the disease has killed 3,865 people out of 8,033 infected so far this year, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to the World Health Organisation's latest count.

The spillover of the virus -- with the first death in the United States and the first case of infection in Spain -- has raised fears of contagion in the West.