Timeline

• August 24:  the Democratic Republic of Congo declares an Ebola outbreak in its northern Equateur province, saying that victims presented either with the Uganda or a combination of the Uganda and Zaire strains
• August 24:  one of the Liberian physicians who received the last available doses of the experimental drug, ZMapp, dies.  Dr. Abraham Borbor had been the chief of John F. Kennedy Medical Center, Liberia's leading medical institution.
• August 23:  Sierra Leone passes a law making it a crime to knowingly harbor anyone in one's home who is sick of Ebola; the penalty is two years' imprisonment
• August 23:  the British consulate in Sierra Leone announces that a British citizen has tested positive with Ebola Virus Disease
• August 23:  it is announced that a team lead by Fabian Leendertz at the Robert Koch Institut has identified the fruit bat as the cause of the epidemic that started in Guinea in December 2013; results of the investigations will be published in a few weeks, it is reported
• August 21:  American physician, Kent Brantly, is released from Emory University Hospital; Brantly, who acquired Ebola in Liberia, had been among the first two people to receive the experimental drug ZMapp (apparently to escape the media glare, his colleague, Nancy Writebol, was released from the same hospital without announcement two days earlier)
• August 20:  it is announced that another Nigerian doctor who tended to Patrick Sawyer has died; this makes 5 deaths in Nigeria, Sawyer himself and four healthcare workers. An online petition had previously been seeking the experimental Ebola drug for her.
• August 20:  the neighborhood of West Point, in Monrovia, Liberia, is cordoned off to prevent further spread of Ebola.  About 75,000 people live there.
• August 20:  the Wellcome Trust, the largest private funder of medical research in the UK, and the UK Department for International Development, announce a $10.8 mill. initiative to fast-track research on Ebola; the Wellcome also offers an initiative to develop the infrastructure of African medical researchers
• August 19:  it is announced that all the patients who dispersed after an Ebola facilty in Monrovia, Liberia, was attacked on 16 August by looters have now been readmitted to treatment centers
• August 16:  3 Liberian physicians receive doses of ZMapp, the same experimental drug given to Americans Brantly and Writebol
• August 14:  Guinea declares a state of emergency
• August 13:  Dr. David Nabarro, a British endocrinologist, is designated as System Coordinator For Ebola by the United Nations
• August 12:  WHO ethics panel approves use of experimental drugs for Ebola patients in Africa
• August 12:  Spanish priest, who was evacuated from Liberia back to Madrid, and given the same experimental drug as the Americans Brantly and Writebol, dies
• August 12:  3rd person dies in Nigerian outbreak, Jatto Asihu Abdulqudir, who had contact in Lagos with the Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer
• Weekend of August 9-10:  Liberia and Guinea, but also distant Zambia (central southern Africa) close their borders
• August 9:  Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf apologizes to healthworkers for the high fatalities among their peers
• August 8:  the WHO declares the West African Ebola outbreak an international public health emergency, its highest level of alert
• August 8:  Nigeria President, Goodluck Jonathan, declares a national state of emergency
• August 6:  death announced of nurse who cared for Patrick Sawyer in Lagos
• August 6:  the CDC goes to Level 1 alert, its highest level, freeing up personnel to focus on the Ebola outbreak
• August 6-7:  WHO holds emergency meeting in Geneva to discuss situation with Ebola
• August 5:  announcement that the two American missionaries evacuated from Liberia were given an experimental drug derived from tobacco
• August 5:  British Airways announces that it is suspending flights to Sierra Leone and Liberia
• August 5:  3 leading global health experts, including Peter Piot, a co-discoverer of Ebola, call for access to experimental drugs for all Africans afflicted by the disease
• August 4:  deployment of troops in Liberia to help contain spread
• August 4:  1st statement that epidemic has peaked (this, 3 days after WHO Director General declared it "out of control")
• August 4:  Nigerian doctor who tended to Ebola-stricken traveler has himself now taken ill
• August 2:  transfer of 1st of American health workers to Emory University Hospital
• August 1:  it is announced that a Liberian in Morocco has died of Ebola, raising the possibility of spread in that country, too [it is later announced that the individual died of a heart attack, not Ebola]
• July 27:  death of leading Sierra Leone doctor
• July 20:  transmission by air travel (specifically to Lagos, Nigeria, the largest city in Africa); this individual--a Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, dies July 25
• Reports that the epidemic is out of control, saying that the scale of the West African outbreak is unprecedented
• June 23:  Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) issues a public statement
• April 16:  Blaize et al. publish their report in the New England Journal of Medicine arguing that the outbreak in West Africa is caused by a hitherto undocumented clade of the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus; they trace the outbreak to a 2-year-old boy who died of the disease in early December 2013
• Notices of the vulnerability of healthcare workers
• First published reports in March; WHO issues its first communiqué on the outbreak on 23 March
• Notices of spread beyond national borders
• December 2013:  outbreak begins in Guéckédou, Guinea (this first known fatality, a 2-year-old boy, was not identified as possibly an Ebola death until March)