BRITISH Army medics will play a crucial role in helping Sierra Leone stem the seemingly inexorable spread of the Ebola virus.

A team of around 120 experts from 22 Field Hospital have been training in 13-hour shifts for the past two weeks in Strensall, near York, ahead of a deployment to the virus hot zone.

An advance team of engineers are already in the former British colony building a state-of-the-art field hospital capable of treating and isolating the deadly virus.

Britain has pledged to build four field hospitals in urban areas of Sierra Leone and help prop up the country's crippled health infrastructure.

Although the first facility will only have beds for 12 patients it will treat the doctors and nurses who have caught the virus as they struggle to contain the epidemic which has brought the country's medical infrastructure to its knees.

Sierra Leone already has one of the worst doctor-to-patient ratios in the world and the Ebola virus has struck down dozens of medics. The lack of care has condemned hundreds of victims to die in the street or in foul-smelling hospitals surrounded by infectious waste.

The British Army medics are expected to deploy for six monts after which the field hospital could be turned over to Save The Children if the crisis is under control.

Patients will be diagnosed by Army doctors before being treated in one of four bays, according to the severity of their illness.

The priority is to stop Ebola spreading. Medics will treat victims in pairs while wearing head-to-toe biohazard suits and masks. Although the suits are lightweight, they are impossible to wear for more than 30 or 40 minutes due to the intolerable tropical heat.

The suits cannot be reused and have to be incinerated to prevent the infection spreading. Hospitals in Sierra Leone have gone through hundreds every day and there is now a worldwide shortage.

Brigadier Kevin Beaton, Commander of 2 Medical Brigade, said: "We are going to have to rely on our training to stay safe.

"We've got one unit [which has] been on high-readiness for the past 18 months. They've already done a significant amount of training and prepared together, and now they will deploy to take on this Ebola task."

However, he admitted: "We can't pretend that there aren't going to be any risks."

Pvt Kate Owen, 23, a Combat Medical Technician (CMT) in the Royal Army Medical Corps, said: "I'm looking forward to going out there because we are going to make a massive difference and hopefully make the health workers feel safe.

"Everyone's a little bit nervous, but that's a good thing because that means we won't get complacent with our drills.

"We've learned how to work here but we are all medical professionals, so it's all a case of transferring our skills and I don't have any fear of going out there."

The CMTs will work alongside doctors and nurses inside the facility to treat confirmed and suspected cases of Ebola, which has already killed 678 people in Sierra Leone.

The team has been practising in a field hospital erected inside a hangar at Strensall Barracks for the past two weeks.

Medics have been dressed in full protective gear and worked with Ebola victims wearing prosthetics to make their symptoms as realistic as possible.

Cpl Siobhan Nash, 31, a nurse with 22 Field Hospital, said: "At first I was quite apprehensive but throughout the training that's been going on in the last couple of weeks I'm happy and confident with what we've been given.

"If you weren't apprehensive you wouldn't be human. I'm confident with how the equipment will protect me."