Siberian scientists urgently working on vaccine for deadly Ebola

The world is facing the most serious Ebola outbreak ever, which has already accounted for around 900 lives this year, with more than 1,600 infected.

Russia's chief epidemiologist, Anna Popova, said: 'Such a vaccine is being developed by the state-run research centre Vector. At the moment, it is undergoing preclinical testing. This work has been accelerated as much as possible today'.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a highly infectious disease caused by the Ebola virus. It owes its name to a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the virus was identified for the first time in 1976. Some 90%  of the infections end in patients' death. No vaccine has been devised against Ebola fever.

The virus is transmitted through direct contact with the blood, body fluids or tissue of infected animals or people. 

Symptoms include the sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, kidney and liver problems, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) is doing everything possible to stop the virus from spreading across borders by bringing more doctors and epidemiologists to the most affected regions

The Vector State Virology and Biotechnology Research Centre, also known as the Vector Institute, is a major research and production centre focusing on molecular biology, virology, genetic engineering, biotechnology, and epidemiology.

The centre, based in Koltsovo, was a trailblazer in inventing and launching the production of test systems for the HIV and Hepatitis B diagnostic justification, and manufactured the only internal vaccine against the Hepatitis A virus.

It is one of only two official repositories in the world for the now-eradicated smallpox virus. In Soviet times it was involved in biological warfare research.