"We must work with the other countries in the Congo Basin to set up a plan to protect our gorillas and chimpanzees, in order to prevent a repetition of the calamity that hit the great apes in Cuvette West region," he told participants in the United Nations Great Apes Survival Projectconference that opened here Tuesday.

Hundreds of gorillas and chimpanzees have died at the Lossi sanctuary in Congo's Cuvette West region, some 700 kilometres (450 miles) north of the capital, near the border with Gabon, since the hemorrhagic fever Ebola broke out there in January.

The sanctuary lies between the districts of Mbomo and Kelle, the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak which has killed 126 people out of 144 affected, the health ministry said Tuesday.

GRASP was created in May 2001 by the United National Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

It concerns 23 countries, two in Asia -- Malaysia and Indonesia, where the forested islands of Borneo and Sumatra are home to orangutans, the only great apes outside Africa -- and 21 in Africa.

Among the African members of GRASP are the Congo Basin nations of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, its vast eastern neighbour Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

SPACE.WIRE