News: 160 British medics sign up to help the fight against Ebola

More than 160 doctors, nurses, paramedics and other NHS staff have volunteered to go to ebola- ravaged West Africa.

They will spend six weeks trying to stem the worst ever outbreak of the disease, which has claimed more than 2,800 lives.

The number of cases will ‘climb exponentially’, with more than 20,000 people infected by the start of November, unless urgent action is taken, the World Health Organisation has forecast.

At the weekend, the Government’s chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies asked British healthcare staff to volunteer. By Monday night, 164 had come forward.

They will be given training before they go on how to prevent the virus spreading in hospitals – and how to protect themselves against infection.

The disease has taken a high toll on healthcare workers, including British nurse William Pooley, who caught ebola while working in blood-spattered wards in Sierra Leone.

The 29-year-old, who was the first Briton to contract ebola, has since made a full recovery.

Yesterday, experts warned that the disease might be here to stay – and become a part of life like flu, HIV or TB. They said that rather than causing large but short outbreaks, it could mutate so it passes more easily between people.

If it does become endemic in West Africa, this would raise the odds of it coming to Britain, said Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust.

A £3.2million grant from the trust, one of the world’s biggest medical charities, will be used to test much-needed ebola drugs in Africa, with the first doses given in November.