Flight attendants who work for Air Canada want the airline to issue an official notice with proper safety protocols to take in case they run into a passenger who may have contracted Ebola.

Attendants say they are at risk since they constantly handle glasses, utensils and plates that have come in contact with saliva from passengers.

Their union wrote to management on Oct. 10 to ask that glove-wearing become mandatory, and to be informed of any passenger that could be at risk of having come into contact with the deadly virus.

"It's a question of health and it's also a question to add a measure that prevents contact with the fluid," said Michel Cournoyer, the president of the flight attendant's union.

"I know it's sometimes perceived as more elegant sometimes not to wear gloves, but at this point it's life-threatening, it's dangerous."

Air Canada said it will consider the matter, but pointed out its rules and regulations already permit attendants to wear gloves whenever they think it is necessary.

"We have no objections for the elective use of gloves under these circumstances provided that crew continue to follow the PHAC and CDC guidelines we have communicated, specifically, that frequent, effective hand-washing take place, as gloves do not replace proper hand hygiene" said said Samuel Elfassy, Senior Director for Corporate Safety at the airline in a written statement.

The World Health Organization stresses that Ebola patients are not contagious until they begin showing symptoms of the disease. As well, most infectious diseases experts say the amount of virus that patients shed early in the illness is low and then grows as the illness progresses.

The virus is present in infected patients' fluids, primarily their blood, vomit or diarrhea. While studies have found the Ebola virus in the saliva of infected patients, the WHO says it was usually found in patients who were already severely ill.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that a nurse who treated a Liberian man who died in Dallas of Ebola had been given the okay by an official from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to take a flight from Cleveland to Dallas, because her fever was below the threshold set by the agency.

The nurse was later diagnosed with Ebola and is being treated in a biohazard infectious disease centre at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.