Health Expert says Ebola crisis in West Africa is overshadowing malaria treatment

A leading malaria control expert Dr Nafo-Traoré has said efforts to contain the disease may be jeopardised by the Ebola crisis.

Dr Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, who heads the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, expressed worry that the attention of health workers have shifted from malaria to Ebola.

She said children's wards which used to be full of malaria patients are becoming ghost areas.

According to Dr Nafo-Traoré, in 2012, malaria killed seven thousand people in the three countries worst hit by Ebola.

The disease caused almost four thousand deaths in Sierra Leone in 2012 - as well as around two thousand deaths in Liberia and approximately one thousand in Guinea.

Dr Nafo-Traoré said she feared that recent gains in preventing malaria could be threatened by the crisis, now that the three countries are wrestling with the Ebola virus.

BBC