Ebola: Timeline Of A Ruthless Killer

CONAKRY - From Guinea's forests to Sierra Leone's capital, here are key dates in the current Ebola epidemic, which since it emerged late last year has spread beyond its west African hotspots.

According to the last toll given by the World Health Organization (WHO), the worst ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever has left 4,555 dead out of 9,216 cases registered.

Three countries have borne the brunt, with Guinea seeing 862 deaths, 2,484 deaths in Liberia, and Sierra Leone 1,200.

December 2013

• 6: A two-year-old child dies in Meliandou in southern Guinea and is later identified as "patient zero." The virus remains localized until February, 2014, when a care worker in a neighboring province dies.

March 2014

• 24: Authorities in Guinea and the WHO say that since January the country has recorded 87 suspected cases of viral hemorrhagic fever, including 61 deaths.
• Scientists studying samples in the French city of Lyon confirm it is Ebola.
• 31: Liberia confirms two cases of the virus.

May

• 26: Sierra Leone confirms its first case.

July

• 20: The virus spreads to Nigeria, as a Liberian-American arrives by plane in Lagos and dies in quarantine.
• 30: Ebola is "out of control" according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Liberia closes its schools after shutting some border crossing points.

August

• 8: The WHO declares the Ebola epidemic a "public health emergency of international concern".
• 12: The WHO authorizes the use of experimental drugs in the fight against Ebola after an ethical debate.
• A Spanish missionary contaminated in Liberia dies in Madrid, the first European fatality.
• 18-27: Several African countries close their borders with the affected countries, as the last remaining airlines suspend their links.

September

• 5: The United Nations says it will take six to nine months to stop the virus from spreading.
• 16: The United States announces a plan to send 3,000 military personnel to Africa.
• 18: The UN Security Council declares the Ebola outbreak "a threat to international peace and security."
• 19: Sierra Leone launches a three-day shutdown to contain the virus. Six days later it places three districts under quarantine which, added to two already locked down, hems in 2.2 million people of a population of six million.
• 30: In the United States, a Liberian is hospitalized in Texas, the first Ebola infection diagnosed outside Africa, and dies on October 8. Two care workers who had been at his bedside are infected.

October

• 6: First infection outside Africa, of a Spanish nurse in a Madrid hospital. On the 19th she tests negative for the virus.
• 9: A top US health official from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that Ebola could become the next AIDS.
• A separate epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 49 people, officials say.
• 14: A Sudanese UN employee infected with the virus in west Africa dies a week after arriving in Germany for treatment.
• 17: The United Nations says it has received 38 percent of the $1 billion (780 million euros) it has appealed for.
• It declares the end of the epidemic in Senegal, with the only patient, who had arrived from Guinea, having been cured.
• 20: The WHO declares that Nigeria is Ebola-free, after eight people died out of 20 cases there.
• EU foreign ministers agree to step up efforts to contain Ebola to prevent it becoming a global threat, including ensuring proper care for international health workers.
• A UN staff member in Sierra Leone dies, the third employee to succumb to the virus.

Source: WHO

Source — Agence France-Presse (AFP) via gmanetwork.com.