Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young said the woman, Cairns nurse Sue Ellen Kovack, recently returned from a month in Sierra Leone, where she has been working in a hospital treating Ebola victims.

Dr Young said Ms Kovack had been in home quarantine since she returned home to Cairns, in far north Queensland. on Tuesday.

"She's been in home isolation, home quarantine, since then following the protocols we put in place, which were nationally agreed to," she said.

Dr Young said Ms Kovack had phoned authorities on Thursday morning after she developed a "low-grade fever" of 37.6 degrees.

She was admitted to Cairns Hospital about 1pm and blood was taken, which was taken to Forensic and Scientific Services in Brisbane, for testing.

Test results could be known late Thursday evening or early Friday, Dr Young said.

Dr Young said Ms Kovack was "perfectly well" when she arrived back in Australia on the weekend and even if it she was diagnosed with Ebola, there was a "very, very low" risk that others were exposed.

"There's no need for any community concern at all because this particular individual only recently got any sort of symptom and she's been in her own home, isolated there," she said.

Dr Young said there no risk to people who had travelled on the same plane as her, as she had not displayed any symptoms on the flight.

"I am treating it as if it was [Ebola] because I don't know how likely it is, but there's the potential there because she has been in Sierra Leone looking after people sick with Ebola," she said.

"So there is the potential there and that's why we're treating this so seriously."

[Cairns nurse Sue-Ellen Kovack at work in Sierra Leone.]

Cairns nurse Sue-Ellen Kovack at work in Sierra Leone. Photo: Facebook

Brisbane doctor Jenny Stedmon, who teamed up with Ms Kovack in Sierra Leone, said the first she had heard of the scare was through the media.

"I knew Sue Ellen was back and I've been trying to talk to her for the past two days, but we've been communicating by text," she said.

"It's all a big surprise to me. We were supposed to talk this morning, but I didn't think too much of it because I was out of quarantine today."

Dr Stedmon said she felt for her colleague, who faced an uncomfortable immediate future no matter what the tests showed.

"Even if it's only just a little bit of fever from catching something on the plane, because it's a hell of a journey back and you are exposed to various other things, she's probably going to have to spend a very uncomfortable time in quarantine in a hospital instead of in her own home," she said.

"I feel very sorry for her."

Dr Stedmon said she worked closely with Ms Kovack at the Kenema Government Hospital, about 300 kilometres east of the Sierra Leone capital Freetown.

"She arrived in my last 10 days there and we were teamed up in the beginning, because you tend to work in pairs," she said.

"We were teammates until it got near to when I was going home and they wanted me to work during the day, so I couldn't follow the rotations quite like she was doing. She's a good nurse."

A federal health department spokeswoman said Australia's Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Baggoley had been in contact with Queensland Health over the potential Ebola case and was confident that they were fully able to handle it.

"Queensland, like all state and territory health authorities, have provided specific guidance to their designated hospitals, paramedic and ambulance workforces, general practice, and state-based quarantine and medical staff in relation to how to isolate, test and treat a suspected Ebola case," the spokeswoman said.

"The Commonwealth will continue to monitor this suspected case in liaison with Queensland Health."