West Ham United striker Carlton Cole is urging the public not to forget the horrors of Ebola as he tries to tackle the disease in West Africa.

Cole, whose mother was born in Sierra Leone, is a founder of 'Football Fighting Ebola' and is concerned that people are already forgetting that more than 10,000 lives were taken by the disease over the past year.

"I've always wanted to make a difference," the Daily Star quotes Cole as saying. "It's either in you or it's not, you can't force it.

"Once the general public lose interest it becomes, 'it's only Ebola like', but they've got to realise that people are actually suffering over there.

"We don't want them to suffer, and that is why we are doing this to help them, to create awareness to say, it hasn't gone yet. It's still there, don't get used to it because we are trying to eradicate it."

Cole has also revealed that he wants to delve into politics once he retires from football.