This picture taken on Aug 19, 2014 shows quarantine officers inspecting the Alpha Friendship, a bulk carrier registered in Greece that carries ores from the Pepel port in Sierra Leone, one of the Ebola-hit area in Western Africa, as the ship berths in the quarantine anchorage waiting for its entry in the port at Qingdao, in East China's Shandong province. [Photo/Agencies]

SHANGHAI - A Chinese drug maker is seeking fast-track approval for a drug that it says can cure Ebola, as China joins the race to help treat a deadly outbreak of a disease that has spread from Africa to the United States and Europe.

Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd has signed a tie-up with Chinese research Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) last week to help push the drug called JK-05 through the approval process in China and bring it to market. The drug, developed by the academy, is currently approved for emergency military use only.

"We believe that we can file to the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) before the end of the year," Sihuan's chairman Che Fengsheng said during an investor call last week.

"We can't rule out the possibility that it will spread to Asia. Particularly in China now we have lots of connections with different international cities and many people coming and going across our borders," he said on the call.