The United States of America has announced plans to send at least 50 public health experts to West Africa in the next 30 days to help fight the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola.

A senior US health official said the outbreak was out of control, but insisted it could be stopped.

Ebola has claimed 728 lives in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year. The current mortality rate is about 55 per cent.

Announcing the measures, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomas Frieden, stated: “We do know how to stop Ebola. It’s old-fashioned, plain and simple public health: find the patients, make sure they get treated, find their contacts, track them, educate people, do infection control in hospitals.

“The single most important thing we can do to protect Americans is to stop this disease at the source in Africa,” he said.