Australian Nurse Tested for Ebola | WPN World People News

An Australian nurse is undergoing medical tests after showing possible signs of Ebola, as the international community continues efforts to limit the outbreak of the virus.

Queensland state chief health officer Jeanette Young said the 57-year-old woman developed a "low-grade fever" shortly after returning from Sierra Leone, where she was working with Ebola patients.

"She came back into the country, she was perfectly well at that time. She did not have any symptoms, she did not have a fever. So it's only since this morning that she's had a low grade fever. She has not been out in the community in Cairns. She has been at home, isolated in her own home, testing herself," said Young.

Test results are expected to be released Friday. Young stressed that even if the woman does have Ebola, there is no reason for the public to be concerned about an outbreak.

The development comes a day after the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States died in Dallas, Texas.

Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said Thomas Eric Duncan died 10 days after he entered the facility. He came to Dallas on September 20 from his native Liberia, the epicenter of the West African Ebola outbreak.

The chief of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Thomas Frieden, said he is deeply saddened by Duncan's death, calling him the face people now will associate with Ebola. Frieden said there cannot be zero risk of an Ebola outbreak in the United States as long as the outbreak continues in West Africa.

President Barack Obama called fighting Ebola a national security priority. He said new screening measures for travelers coming from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will be put in place at five major U.S. airports.

Obama said the United States has the world's best doctors who know how to deal with infectious diseases. He said he is confident there will be no outbreak in the U.S.

Enhanced screening for travelers from those three West African countries will begin Saturday at JFK International Airport in New York. They will be introduced next week at four others -- Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta; Newark International Airport in Newark, New Jersey; O'Hare in Chicago; and Washington's Dulles Airport.

Customs officials will quiz passengers about their travel in West Africa, take their temperatures, and observe them for other signs of Ebola.

Anyone with a fever or showing any other symptoms will be passed on to medical authorities for a detailed evaluation.

Ebola has killed nearly 3,900 people mostly in West Africa. There are more than 8,000 confirmed cases.

A nurse in Madrid was found to have Ebola after caring for two Spanish missionaries who were brought there for treatment. Officials believe she contracted the disease by touching her face with an infected glove.

Source: Voice of America