With the death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa nudging 7000, the international scientific community is scrambling to find a cure.
A laboratory on the outskirts of Geelong in Victoria is one of a handful around the world conducting research into the virus, and could be the site for the testing of future vaccines.
There a small team of scientists is doing delicate and risky work.
Each day lead researcher Dr Glenn Marsh and his team of five scientists take an hour to move through the maze-like building, into the central high security section where the virus is stored.
To be able to even work in the lab requires at least a year of training -- and with good reason. It's where some of the world's most deadly viruses, including Hendra, Nipah and SARS are contained.
If any of these viruses were to make it out of the lab, it could have deadly consequences.
But for the past year, their focus has been on one virus in particular -- Ebola.
In particular, the Zaire strain, which has spread at an unprecedented rate across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
"We're the only laboratory in the country that have the live virus and can work with the live virus."
Dr Marsh said his team is aiming to eventually understand why the virus has taken such a strong hold in West Africa.
"Our major goal is trying to understand why some of the strains of the Ebola virus cause significant human disease and other strains don't cause disease," he told SBS.
"We know there's five different strains of Ebola virus, four of those are present in Africa, and three of those cause significant human disease, as we've seen with the current outbreak."
The Ebola lab sits in a unique position in Australia's Ebola research efforts.
"We're the only laboratory in the country that have the live virus and can work with the live virus," Dr Marsh said.
"There are other groups around the country looking at what they could do so people looking at developing therapeutics or vaccines or anti-body therapies but all of those are going to have to be given to somebody with access to the live virus eventually for testing."
Dr Kurt Zuelke is the director of CSIRO's biosecurity flagship.
He said it's quite possible Australian scientists will end up playing a key role in finding an Ebola cure.
"This facility is unique, globally," Dr Zuelke said.
"And it's a truly special capability that Australia has to contribute to the global effort to prevent and to understand these diseases and I'm not sure that's always understood."
Work on Zaire strain pre-dates current outbreak
Australian scientists had begun research on the Zaire strain of Ebola a year before it spiralled into an epidemic across West Africa.
Dr Marsh was the scientist responsible for that fortuitous decision.
"We didn't predict the current outbreak but we do know the Zaire strain, there's also the Sudan strain and the Bundibugyo strain in Africa that have all caused outbreaks," he said.
"Some of those outbreaks involved hundreds of people. So it is known that Ebola can cause large outbreaks, just not on the scale we're seeing this year."
Very little is known about how the Ebola virus develops.
However, CSIRO senior research scientist, Dr Michelle Baker said bats may be the crucial link in understanding the virus.
"Bats carry a variety of different viruses," she said.
"I think the last count was over 100 different viruses were identified in bats so many of the viruses that are carried by bats, we probably don't even know about yet. And there might be a potential virus that will have an impact in the future and if you can understand how bats are controlling these viruses, I think there's potential to treat these viruses, not just Ebola, down the track."
The current outbreak of Ebola has prompted the World Health Organisation to fast-track human clinical trials of two untested vaccines that scientists have claimed could be effective in protecting against Ebola.
"Getting a vaccine to market is a significant investment. And it's not going to be a very profitable for a vaccine manufacturer to make.
Dr Glenn Marsh said the relatively small numbers of people affected in the limited outbreaks of Ebola so far have made both vaccines unattractive for commercial development.
"This outbreak's significantly larger than any outbreak we've had in the past. And even though we've wanted vaccines in previous outbreaks there just hasn't been that push because of the number of people involved," he said.
"Getting a vaccine to market is a significant investment. And it's not going to be a very profitable for a vaccine manufacturer to make. So vaccine manufacturers getting involved in this are doing it for public good reasons and not to make any money on them."
Dr Marsh said despite the fact that two vaccines are already being tested, there's a need for alternatives to be considered.
"They may not be the best vaccines for human use," he said.
"They may have side effects on people that we don't yet know about until the clinical trials are carried out. So there's always a need to improve the vaccine."
"Also, some of the vaccines being assessed may be difficult to manufacture and if we can find easier ones to manufacture or ones that are more stable at higher temperatures. If you think about a vaccine being deployed in Africa, transporting that vaccine frozen, large distances may be difficult so if somebody could develop a vaccine that could be stored at room temperature and still give the same level of protection it may be more suited for that area of the world."
