Dr Chant would not comment directly on statements from Prime Minister Tony Abbott and federal Health Minister Peter Dutton that sending Australian personnel to the disease-affected areas would  place those workers in harm's way until better evacuation arrangements were in place.

But she said a small number of highly trained NSW health staff had already gone to the area and that more were due to go.

"We do support and acknowledge their work, they go with our blessing and our appreciation that they are contributing globally," Dr Chant said.

"It is an individual decision for them to go but when they have made that decision we are very happy to support them and to welcome them back."

While Canberra has allocated some $18 million for the battle against Ebola, more than 100 professors of public health from around the country have urged the federal government to boost this with the deployment of specialist personnel, a call supported by Labor.

The Australian Medical Association and front-line agencies such as the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres have supported the call for Australia to deploy more front-line resources to the region. Judith Kiejda, of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, said the federal government seemed more ready to "spend money on heading over to the Middle East" than on the Ebola crisis.

Dr Chant said NSW was carefully monitoring the situation in the United States, where a second nurse,  29 year-old Amber Vinson, has contracted the disease from a patient who was treated at a Texas hospital. Ms Vinson  was able to take a domestic flight with more than 100 other passengers before reporting symptoms hours after the flight. Ebola has an incubation period of up to 21 days and is infectious only when a patient has symptoms.

Dr Chant  said that while it was not inevitable that Ebola would make its way to Australia, "We are part of a global community and international diseases spread internationally and we do have to plan for that contingency".

But she said Australia had a " very robust" health care system and "while we may see cases of Ebola here I'm  confident we have systems in place that would  prevent further transmission and outbreaks occurring in our context".

The federal government began screening passengers who had travelled in west Africa in early August and has since interviewed more than 700 at Australian airports around the country.

While some are health workers, others are business travellers, particularly in the oil and gas sector, or family members related to members of the migrant community.

Those identified as having travelled in affected areas of west Africa are given information cards by border protection officers telling them to "see a doctor or go to the hospital emergency department immediately if you feel unwell after arrival".

But Dr Chant said NSW had suggested  the advice should be changed to "prioritise contacting a hospital over a doctor".  Returning health workers did not return to clinical duties until the potential 21-day incubation period had elapsed, she said.

The leader of the United Nations' Ebola response team,  Anthony Banbury,  warned this week that the disease was "running faster than us and it is winning the race".

This followed a warning from the World Health Organisation that the infection rate could reach 5000 to 10,000 new cases a week by December, with more than 1.4 million  cases by early next year under worst-case scenarios.