MOSCOW, August 21./ITAR-TASS/. The Russian federal public health control service (Rospotrebnadzor), together with the Emergencies Ministry, sends a special plane with a mobile laboratory on board to the Republic of Guinea to deal with the Ebola outbreak, the Rospotrebnadzor press service said.

"In connection with the tense epidemic situation in West African countries and at the official request from Guinea to the Russian government, Rospotrebnadzor has prepared a mobile complex of a special anti-epidemic team," the press service said.

A group of eight best Russian virologists is leaving for Guinea to help fight the Ebola outbreak, Russian Vice-Premier Olga Golodets told reporters on Thursday.

The Russian Emergencies Ministry’s information department said the ministry's Ilyushin 76 plane was planned to take off from Ramenskoye airport, located near Moscow, on Thursday evening.

The mobile laboratory has equipment to diagnose Ebola and other dangerous infection diseases. In the team are epidemiologists, virologists and bacteriologists.

The Ebola outbreak that started in January 2014 became the longest and most deadly in the history of Africa. The World Health Organization reported that the number of Ebola-infected people reached 2,240 on August 19, 1,229 cases were deadly.

Ebola virus was first discovered in Zaire, presently the Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1976. Before this outbreak, the virus has never been reported in West Africa and has never spread to cities.