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One year on: Deadliest outbreak of Ebola was confirmed
Exactly a year ago today the deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus was confirmed.
More than 10,000 people have died and at least 24,000 have been infected since the epidemic broke out in Guinea and spread to neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia.
View all 2 updates ›Exactly a year ago today the deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus was confirmed - so far it has killed more than 10,000 people.
Below is a timeline of the Ebola virus:
- 1976 - A school teacher in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, becomes the first documented person to contract the Ebola virus and later dies.
- 1976 - 2013 - A number of small outbreaks affect west Africa, with the highest death toll at one time reaching just over 250.
- December 2013 - A handful of people in Guinea die of an unidentified fever, which is later confirmed as Ebola.
- March 2014th - The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports a major Ebola outbreak in Guinea, while Liberia identifies its first case and over the next few months the virus spreads to neighbouring Sierra Leone.
- August 8th - The WHO declares Ebola an "international health emergency". Four days later, the death toll exceeds 1,000.
- August 24th - British volunteer nurse William Pooley is urgently flown to London for treatment after contracting the virus. The 29-year-old makes a full recovery and later returns to west Africa.
- September 17th - The first healthy human volunteer is injected with an experimental Ebolavaccine in Oxford as part of a fast-tracked British trial.
- October 8th - Thomas Eric Duncan becomes the first person to die on American soil after it is believed he contracted the disease in Liberia. Two nurses at the Texas hospital where he was treated are also infected.
- October 9th - The Government announces screening for passengers arriving at Gatwick and Heathrow airports, and warns some Ebola cases will reach the UK.
- November 22nd - The first NHS volunteers, including GPs, nurses, psychiatrists and emergency medicine consultants, leave for Sierra Leone to join the fight against Ebola.
- December 24th - The WHO says there have been 19,497 reported cases of Ebola, with 7,588 reported deaths.
- December 29th - The Scottish Government announces that a female healthcare worker who returned from Sierra Leone via Casablanca and London Heathrow has been diagnosed with Ebola in Glasgow.
- December 30th - Pauline Cafferkey, 39, is flown from Glasgow to the Royal Free Hospital in north London by RAF jet where her condition deteriorates over the next few days and becomes critical.
- January 24th 2015 - Mrs Cafferkey is discharged from hospital after making a full recovery.
- January 29th - The WHO says the three worst affected countries - Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia - have reported fewer than 100 cases in the past week, for the first time since June. The death toll has reached more than 8,000.
- March 11th - PHE announces that a UK military healthcare worker has tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone. Six other Britons are also brought back in the following days for tests after potentially being exposed but none are found to have the disease.
- March 12th - The WHO announces the death toll from the Ebola epidemic has surpassed 10,000.
- March 23rd - A year is marked since the WHO received laboratory confirmation that Ebola had broken out in Guinea.
Last updated Mon 23 Mar 2015
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