YORK-based soldiers who helped fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa were today honoured at reception at the Houses of Parliament.

Servicemen and women from Strensall's 34 Field Hospital braved driving rain to march to Parliament.

Two months after they got back from Sierra Leone, the Operation Gritlock soldiers, sailors and aircrew were joined by volunteers and staff from the Department for International Development (DFID), NHS England and Public Health England for the event.

The York soldiers were part of a team of 100 regulars and reserves from all three services, including 18 from the Canadian Armed Forces, which treated healthcare workers who had cared for Ebola patients and then contracted the disease themselves.

Twenty-seven armed forces personnel are still in Sierra Leone, helping in the effort to get Ebola cases down to zero.

International Development Secretary Justine Greening paid tribute to that work, and said: "We can all be immensely proud of the contribution the thousands of Brits who deployed to West Africa have made to the fight against Ebola.

"Although the fight is not quite over, the extraordinary courage, skill and hard work of over 2000 UK military and civilian personnel, including many from DFID, has made a vital difference to Sierra Leone’s efforts to defeat this terrible disease."