Cuba said it will send nearly 300 more doctors and nurses to west Africa to help fight the Ebola epidemic.

This will raise to 461 the number of Cuban medical personnel that the country will send to battle the disease.

The Cubans will work in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, said Regla Angulo, head of the Cuban medical relief agency.

Until now Cuba had pledged 165 doctors and nurses for Sierra Leone.

The staff are undergoing intense training ahead of their deployment, working in a mock field hospital of the kind they expect to find in Africa.