Global humanitarian group Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) announced in Geneva today that it would launch accelerated clinical trials in west Africa next month to seek a treatment for the Ebola virus.

MSF said that it would host the trials starting in three Ebola treatment centres using experimental drugs that haven't been through the usual lengthy process of study with animals and healthy people.

Separate trials will be led by three different research partners and involve the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) and health officials in affected countries.

"If we're going to find a treatment we have to do it now, which is why we have to accelerate these trials," said Peter Horby, chief investigator for a trial led by Oxford University.

Oxford's trial will test the antiviral drug brincidofovir in Liberia.

France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research will conduct a trial using the antiviral drug favipiravir in Gueckedou, Guinea.

The Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine will test convalescent whole blood and plasma therapy in Guinea.

Results from some of the trials are expected by February or March.

The largest ever outbreak of Ebola has raged for more than eight months, killing over 5,000 people and infecting 14,000 in west Africa.

The UN has appointed an Ebola chief and various governments have set up clinics, but medical teams are stretched thin and the WHO complains of not having enough foreign medical workers.

There are no established drugs for Ebola. Human testing of a handful of experimental drugs for the virus has begun on several continents.

The current outbreak kills between 50 and 80 per cent of those infected in west Africa.

While some areas of Liberia - the country hardest hit by the outbreak - have seen declines in new infections, new hotspots are emerging.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced yesterday that she would lift the state of emergency she imposed to control the spread of Ebola.

In a nationwide address she said that this does not mean that the outbreak is over, but that enough progress has been made to lift emergency measures.

However she urged people to continue to wash their hands frequently and to avoid contact with the sick and dead.