MORE than 2,500 people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola and it is rated by Barack Obama no-less as a threat to global security.

Scientists are working to come up with a vaccine and let’s hope they succeed.

But the real heroes have to be the first volunteers here in Oxford who have put themselves forward to be injected with an Ebola gene at the Churchill Hospital as part of this work.

Many would shy away from taking any risk with such a deadly disease.

Ruth Atkins, though, sums up why these volunteers have come forward to help when she says that if she was one of the afflicted in Africa, she would hope people were working to find a vaccine.

That is truly being selfless.