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A leading malaria control expert has said efforts to contain the disease may be jeopardised by the Ebola crisis, the BBC reported.

Dr Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, who heads the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, said after visiting west Africa: "Understandably, all the health workers' attention is on Ebola."

Children's wards which used to be full of malaria patients were becoming "ghost areas," she added.

In 2012, malaria killed 7,000 people in the three countries worst hit by Ebola.

Most of these will have been young children - although malaria is curable.

The disease caused almost 4,000 deaths in Sierra Leone in 2012 - as well as around 2,000 deaths in Liberia and approximately 1,000 in Guinea.

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

She said: "These countries have previously been really hit by malaria. But five years ago, it was even worse - the deaths were double.

"We all agree that no child should die from malaria, because we have the tools to prevent and treat it.

"But now, understandably, all the health workers' attention is on Ebola.

"We used to see hospital beds with three children in them at a time, because there was not enough space.

"Now those paediatric wards are becoming ghost areas, because of the lack of manpower there.

"So we don't know who has malaria, and who is dying from it.

"Even if the situation is at the same level as last year, that was still very bad in those countries. We're really concerned that Ebola will cause a setback to the efforts on malaria.

"And there's a lack of trust and confidence in health workers. There's still a feeling it's them who are bringing the virus to people."