Washington, Nov 22 (IANS): UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that the spread of the deadly Ebola virus could be contained by mid-2015.

Ban made the observation Friday and said that the Ebola outbreak could be contained by continuing to scale up the global fight against the disease.

Addressing a press conference at the World Bank headquarters, the UN secretary-general emphasised that results are still uneven, and announced that the organisation's top health officials will head to Mali where the situation is still a cause of "deep concern," Xinhua reported.

"The rate of transmission continues to increase in too many places," Ban said.

He made an urgent appeal for ramping up resources.

"We need more international responders, trained medical teams and volunteer health workers, especially in remote districts," he added.

By Nov 20, there have been six reported cases in Mali and all of those patients have died.

But there have been "some welcome progress," Ban noted.

"We are seeing the curve bending in enough places to give us hope. If we continue to accelerate our response, we can contain and end the outbreak by the middle of next year,” he said.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said Friday that to get to zero cases of Ebola will be extraordinarily difficult as it is not a disease where one can leave a few cases and say enough has been done.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Ebola has killed more than 5,400 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since March.