Over 160 Cuban medical personnel are set to journey to the Ebola-stricken country of Sierra Leone to help provide a solution to the ever-dreaded virus that has already claimed nearly 2,500 lives.

Cuban Health Minister Roberto Morales Ojeda announced in Geneva that a group of 165 collaborators, including 103 nurse and 62 doctors, will be sent to the distraught West African nation to aid in the brigade against the outbreak.

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According to him, all 165 personnel who volunteered for the task have "previously participated in post-catastrophe situations."

They are scheduled to arrive in the country by the first week of October and will stay for six months in Sierra Leone where over 500 Ebola-patients have succumbed to death.

Lauding Cuba's commitment, WHO chief Margaret Chan noted that the Latino country has made the 'largest' foreign medical team to be sent to help in fighting the outbreak.

"Our response in running short, ...but the thing we need most of all is people," she stated citing that around 500 foreign health experts and a thousand local medical personnel are still needed to impede the spread of the virus.

Sierra Leone has been one of the three countries with the highest Ebola cases recorded, together with Liberia and Guinea.

According to statistics, the death toll has risen to over 2,400 as of September 12 with 4,784 more confirmed cases all over West Africa.

The Ebola virus can be transmitted through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids and is usually signaled by haemorrhagic fever.

Survival rate is 50 percent though in most cases, an Ebola patient does not survive at all. Medical treatment is focused only on symptoms, that is, no specific treatment has been discovered yet.

While some experimental vaccines are available, none have been proven to actually prevent an individual from contracting the disease.

TagsSierra Leone, Cuba, medical personnel