EXPERTS who led the worldwide fight against Ebola are to meet in Oxford for the first time since the killer disease was largely brought under control.

Speakers, including Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, will speak at the free event, which is open to the public.

The conference, at the Said Business School on Wednesday, July 15, will examine how leaders in research, government and industry joined forces to develop vaccines to tackle the outbreak, which started in March last year.

Pioneering work was carried out by a team led by Oxford University’s Prof Adrian Hill, and in September mum-of-two Ruth Atkins, from Marcham, near Abingdon, became the first person in the world to be injected with an Ebola gene.

Ms Atkins was one of 60 people given a trial vaccine for the virus at the Churchill Hospital’s Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine as part of a city-led battle against the deadly virus Prof Hill, who worked to develop safe Ebola vaccines with the World Health Organisation, GlaxoSmithKline and other companies, will attend the conference.

Prof Miles Carroll, head of research at Public Health England, will also be at the event, titled ‘The Global Response to Ebola: Implications for Future Drug and Vaccine Development’.

The event has been organised by Oxford Biotech, a new company launched by Oxford University students to transform laboratory discoveries into commercial products.

The 2014 Ebola epidemic was the largest ever outbreak, causing over 10,000 deaths and more than 25,000 reported cases.

The conference starts at 3pm.