The chief executive of protective equipment maker Ansell, Magnus Nicolin, said the increasing news coverage of the terrifying outbreak, especially in the United States where a second nurse has contracted the virus, would play on the minds of decision makers in business.

"It creates a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace," he said. "I think you're going to see people deferring decisions on certain investments if this continues."

Global markets dropped on fears of a spread of the virus this week after US officials announced more than 100 people had potentially been exposed to the virus in the US. Investors in London, New York and Japan all sold heavily and world oil prices dropped to a four-year low.

America's biggest airlines watched their shares fall between 4 and 6 per cent on Friday as news filtered out that an American health worker diagnosed with Ebola caught a cross-country flight.

Investors fear the scare may cause travellers to reconsider their travel plans, hitting airline revenues as the crucial holiday season approaches. The spectre of travel bans should the outbreak spread has also been raised. The 2003 SARS epidemic cost airlines about $6 billion.

But Mr Nicolin said there is also some upside for Ansell as global health organisations band together to fight the outbreak. Sales to West Africa of Ansell's medical exam and surgical gloves, as well as protective clothing used in clean up operations have shown an "incremental" increase, he said.

"It's not material, but it is a moving variable that depending on what happens with Ebola could become more significant," he said.

Mr Nicolin said demand for Ansell's relatively new range of antimicrobial gloves, which are coated with gels that kill viral and bacterial organisms, could increase. "We are the only company with antimicrobial surgical glove," he said.

The special gloves cost 60 to 80 per cent more than the standard product. Ansell's largest market for the gloves at the moment is Russia, where surgeons and physicians try to protect themselves from high instances of hepatitis B among the population.

Ansell has donated 2.8 million pairs of its standard gloves to Ebola-hit regions. "It's obviously quite traumatic," Mr Nicolin said. "We obviously have a role to not just sell product."

Another Australian company, blood plasma product and vaccine maker CSL said this week it was in talks with the World Health Organisation about a short-term solution to the epidemic that has so far killed more than 4500 people.

Chief executive Paul Perreault said it would take more than a year to create a vaccine. But CSL could play a role in the purification of antibodies found in the blood of survivors. These could be used as a treatment for sufferers.

The World Bank has put the cost of the Ebola outbreak – if it spreads beyond the west of Africa, as is currently expected – at $32.6 billion by the end of 2015.

The 2003 SARS outbreak caused relatively few deaths – 1000, while Ebola's death toll rose to more than 4500 this week – but had a significant impact on GDP growth in several Asian nations.

China's GDP took a -1.05 per cent hit, and Hong Kong suffered a -2.63 per cent hit, and the overall cost of the outbreak was in the region of $33 billion.

However, the reality is while Ebola remains largely contained to the African continent there are few opportunities for Australian involvement, said Australian National University infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon. Indeed, Australia only has a single copy of the virus, kept at a government lab in Geelong, for researchers to study.

"This is one of those cases where Australia is relatively so small that we really do not have the resources or the equipment to do much," Professor Collignon said.