A 100-strong force of Army medics are to be rushed to the Ebola hot zone as part of the UK's bid to bring the deadly virus under control, the MoD has announced.

The medical experts will be flown to Sierra Leone where they will set up and man a state-of-the-art field hospital to treat patients.

The move comes after growing fears of an outbreak in Spain after authorities confirmed 56 people were being monitored after a nurse in Madrid became the first person to catch the virus outside Africa.

Personnel from the Army's 22 Field Hospital, normally based in York, are already training for their role on the frontline.

Today they held a full-scale exercise showing how they will deal with Evola victims as part of a humantiarian operation.

 

They will staff a field hospital set up specifically to treat medics who have caught the disease, not members of the general public, and will operate a 12-bed facility.

The medics have been undergoing an extensive training exercise in full protective suits, with simulated casualties in make-up, at Strensall Barracks, York. The exercise which is expected to last two weeks has been running for 13 hours every day.

Casualties with symptoms or suspicion of the Ebola virus, complete with realistic make-up and prosthetic veins, present themselves to the teams who are dressed in full protective plastic suits and face masks.

An Army spokeswoman said: "They are going through all their procedures and getting atuned to wearing their personal protective equipment, working in quite hot temperatures.

"The training centre, which was geared up to be a replica of Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, can vary the temperature and it is warm in there today.

"The casualties come in and the medics test their procedures and working through using their protective equipment."

The unprecedented Ebola outbreak this year has killed more than 3,400 people in West Africa, and become an escalating concern to the rest of the world.