To date, the death toll from Ebola in West Africa has claimed over 4,900 lives.

And during the outbreak, technology companies such as Samsung have donated smartphones to help health workers better coordinate with regard to dealing with the outbreak.

But IBM this week announced that it too is providing help via several initiatives.

In a statement, IBM says these initiatives include a "citizen engagement and analytics system in Sierra Leone that enables communities affected by Ebola to communicate their issues and concerns directly to the government; a donation of IBM Connections technology in Nigeria to strengthen the Lagos State government's preparedness for future disease outbreaks; and a global platform for sharing Ebola-related data."

Providing more detail about its initiatives, IBM says its partners include Sierra Leone's Open Government Initiative, Cambridge University's Africa's Voices project, Airtel and Kenya's Echo Mobile.

IBM's first African research lab in Kenya has also been roped in to help with the fight against Ebola.

"IBM's new Africa research lab, in collaboration with Sierra Leone's Open Government Initiative, has developed a system that enables citizens to report Ebola-related issues and concerns via SMS or voice calls. It provides actionable insight to the government about the day-to-day experiences of communities directly affected by Ebola to help improve its strategy for containing the disease," notes IBM.

In Nigeria, IBM's 'connections' technology donation is targeted at helping the Lagos State Government strengthen the coordination of public health emergency response teams.

"IBM's Connections technology has a proven track record in humanitarian disaster response situations. It provides health workers and administrators with a reliable and secure digital platform to work together virtually and in person, enabling them to securely share documents, identify experts, exchange video, chat and audio messages, provide updates, tap into information via mobile devices and hold virtual meetings," says IBM.

Meanwhile, IBM volunteers across the globe are also leading a community effort to classify all open data sources related to the Ebola outbreak.

The volunteers are calling on organisations worldwide to contribute data with a goal in mind of creating an "Ebola Open Data Repository which will use IBM's SoftLayer cloud technology to provide governments, aid agencies and researchers with free and open access to valuable open data related to Ebola."