Entrepreneurs and experts began the first journey of the 'AMPION Venture Bus' tour in West Africa on Monday with the main focus on developing mobile apps that will tackle the Ebola virus.

The 2014 AMPION Venture Bus is a spin-off of last year's African StartupBus initiative.

It was announced in July this year that the AMPION Venture Bus would visit 16 African countries travelling from West, East, southern to North Africa.

The West African leg of the bus tour, which began today, would run until the 1st of November traveling from Lagos, Nigeria to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast.

Other areas where the bus will be making its stop include Ghana, Togo and Benin.

The West Africa tour 180 international and African Ampioneers would focus on developing mobile applications to tackle Ebola directly or facilitate the work of international humanitarian and health institutions, says a statement.

The statement adds, the Venture Bus West Africa will visit the IDEA accelerator in Lagos, the American Cultural Center and Etrilabs in Cotonou, Woelab in Lomé, iSPace and Hub Accra in Accra, the Cape Coast University and Akendewa in Abidjan.

The AMPION Venture Buses are expected to bring an invaluable boost to health-care development on the African continent and yield e-health solutions that will additionally help in dealing with similar health crises in the future, the statement reads.

According to World Health Organisation (WHO), there have been over 9,900 cases of the virus to date this year in West Africa.

Meanwhile, over 4,500 people have died of Ebola thus far this year.