MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. The UN special envoy for Ebola virus, David Nabarro, has asked Russia to send experts to help struggle against the deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, Russia's consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said on Wednesday.

Senior UN System Coordinator for Ebola Virus Disease, Nabarro has discussed the possible plans with Rospotrebnadzor head Anna Popova during a meeting in Moscow.

“The representative of the UN Secretary-General has requested to send additional teams of specialists to participate in the anti-epidemic effort in Liberia and Sierra Leone,” Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement.

Rospotrebnadzor says it is ready to consider the possibility of providing West African countries with additional aid by sending specialists and laboratories on condition that the UN has a coordinating role and guarantees security of the personnel.

Nabarro is paying visits to leading countries of the world to speed up the effort to resolve the crisis following the Ebola virus outbreak. The United Nations is forming a global coalition to help control the disease and is organizing a special UN Mission headquartered in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

Russia's effort in the fight against Ebola

Russian experts are already involved in fighting Ebola in West Africa. A special disease control team from Rospotrebnadzor’s scientific and research institutes has been deployed to Guinea since August 22.

The team uses Russian test systems for diagnosing the virus, which have already proved effective, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Russian doctors are testing the domestic vaccine against the disease in the Ebola outbreak zones.

The WHO says the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 3,500 people, while over 7,500 people have been infected.

Almost $50 million to fight the deadly virus

The UN General Assembly on Tuesday adopted a resolution to allocate $49.9 million in funding for the newly established UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER). The detailed budget of the mission to fight the epidemic is expected to be unveiled by UN chief Ban Ki-moon in late November.

Analysts say the Ebola epidemic is emerging as a global threat which requires all-round attention. The outbreak started in West Africa in December 2013 and by now Ebola has spread across five countries, namely Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal.

The Ebola virus disease (formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever) was first reported in 1976 in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) and took its name from the river, in the northern Congo basin of central Africa, near which the first outbreak occurred.

It is a severe, often fatal illness, with a case fatality rate of up to 90% The infection is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected animals or people. Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care.