The research has also revealed the very effective mechanism which the Ebola virus uses to insert its genes into the cells it infects.

Electron micrograph of Ebola Zaire virus

The team, led by Gary Nabel and Zhi-yong Yang now hopes to borrow this mechanism from the virus, and to use it to insert protective genes into the walls of the coronary arteries of people affected by heart disease.

If they succeed, then the Ebola virus could eventually save far more lives than the numbers it has killed.

They said in the journal Science that glycoproteins- a protein attached to a carbohydrate - were the key to their discovery.

Other scientists had noticed glycoproteins were involved in Ebola infection but were not sure what exactly they did.

It now appears they bind to neutrophils, a kind of white blood cell that would normally defend against viruses like Ebola.

If an efficient way could be found to stop the glycoproteins, perhaps this could help treat Ebola infections, they said.

Ebola, one of the most virulent viral diseases known, kills between 50 and 90% of its victims depending on the strain, usually within days.

It is spread by direct contact with body fluids such as blood, vomit and diarrhoea.

Some 245 people died in 1995 in an epidemic around Kikwit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) and there have also been cases in Sudan, Gabon and the Ivory Coast.