Australian woman tested for Ebola while Spanish nurse’s condition worsens

A 57-year-old Australian woman has been tested for Ebola after she developed a fever following her return from Sierra Leone, health officials have confirmed. The volunteer Red Cross nurse arrived back in Australia at the weekend after spending a month working at an ebola hospital in the West African country. The nurse, named as Sue Ellen Kovack by local media, followed health rules and has not mixed with anyone since Tuesday when she returned to her home in Cairns, Queensland. She remains in isolation at the Cairns Hospital but her blood has been flown to Brisbane to confirm whether or not she has the deadly virus.

There is the potential there so that’s why we’re treating this so seriously.

Queensland state chief health officer Jeanette Young

Meanwhile, the health of a Spanish nurse who became the first person to contract Ebola outside of West Africa has worsened, a hospital official said on Thursday. Teresa Romero’s brother said her health had deteriorated and she was now being helped with her breathing in hospital. Two doctors who treated her have been admitted for observation. The admissions bring to six the total number of people under quarantine at the hospital in Madrid. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is unlike anything since the emergence of HIV/AIDS, top U.S. medical official Thomas Frieden has said. The world needed to work fast so it did not become” the next AIDS”, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added.

I would say that in the 30 years I’ve been working in public health, the only thing like this has been Aids.

U.S. Medical Officer Thomas Frieden

World US ebola