3. July 2014 – Patrick Sawyer, a top government official
in the Liberian Ministry of Finance, dies at a local Nigerian hospital. He is
the first American to die in what officials are calling “deadliest Ebola
outbreak in history.”
4. July 2014 – Nancy Writebol, an American aid worker in
Liberia, tests positive for Ebola. According to Samaritan’s Purse, Writebol is
infected while treating Ebola patients in Liberia.
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| Dr. Kent Brantly attends patient in Liberia |
6. July 29, 2014 – According to Doctors Without Borders,
Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan who was overseeing Ebola treatment at Kenema Government
Hospital in Sierra Leone dies from complications of the disease.
7. July 30, 2014 – The Peace Corps announces it is
removing its volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
8. July 31, 2014 – CDC raises its warning to Level 3. It
warns U.S. residents to avoid “nonessential travel” to Sierra Leone, Guinea,
and Liberia.
9. August 2, 2014 – A specially equipped medical plane
carrying Ebola patient Dr. Kent Brantly lands at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in
Marietta, Georgia. He is then driven by ambulance to Emory University Hospital
in Atlanta.
10. August 4, 2014 – CNN reports that three top secret,
experimental vials of the drug, “ZMapp,” were flown into Liberia last week in a
last-ditch effort to save Brantly and Writebol, according to a source familiar
with details of the treatment. Doctors report “significant improvement.”
11. August 6, 2014 – Nancy Writebol arrives at Emory in Atlanta for treatment.
12. August 8, 2014 – Experts at the World Health Organization declare the Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa an international health emergency that requires a coordinated global approach, describing it as the worst outbreak in the four-decade history of tracking the disease.
13. August 19, 2014 – Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf declares a nationwide curfew beginning August 20 and orders two
communities to be completely quarantined, with no movement in or out of the
areas.
14. August 21, 2014 – Dr. Kent Brantly is discharged from
Emory University Hospital. It is also announced that Nancy Writebol had been
released on Tuesday, August 19. The releases come after Emory staff are
confident Brantly and Writebol pose “no public health threat.”
15. September 6, 2014 – The government of Sierra Leone
announces plans for a nationwide lockdown from September 19-21, in order to
stop the spread of Ebola. The lockdown is being billed as a predominantly social
campaign rather than a medical one, in which volunteers will go door-to-door to
talk to people.
16. September 16, 2014 – President Barack Obama calls the
efforts to combat the Ebola outbreak centered in West Africa “the largest
international response in the history of the CDC.” Speaking from the CDC
headquarters in Atlanta, Obama adds that “faced with this outbreak, the world
is looking to” the United States to lead international efforts to combat the
virus. He says the United States is ready to take on that leadership role.
17. September 30, 2014 – Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of
the CDC, announces the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States. The
person has been hospitalized and isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital
in Dallas, Texas, since September 28.
18. October 1, 2014 – Liberian government officials
release the name of the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States:
Thomas Eric Duncan.
19. October 6, 2014 – A nurse’s assistant in Spain
becomes the first person known to have contracted Ebola outside Africa in the
current outbreak. The woman helped treat two Spanish missionaries, both of whom
had contracted Ebola in West Africa, one in Liberia and the other in Sierra
Leone. Both died after returning to Spain. On October 19, Spain’s Special Ebola
Committee says that nurse’s aide Teresa Romero Ramos is considered free of the
Ebola virus.
20. October 6, 2014 – NBC freelance cameraman Ashoka
Mukpo arrives at Nebraska Medical Center for treatment after contracting Ebola
in Liberia. On October 21, the hospital says that Mukpo no longer has the Ebola
virus in his bloodstream and will be allowed to leave.
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| Nina Pham |
22. October 11, 2014 – Nina Pham, a Dallas nurse who cared for the now-deceased Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, tests positive for Ebola during a preliminary blood test. She is the first person to contract Ebola on American soil.
23. October 15, 2014 – Amber Vinson, a second Dallas nurse who also cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, is diagnosed with Ebola. Authorities say Vinson flew on a commercial jet from Cleveland to Dallas days before testing positive for Ebola.
24. October 20, 2014 – Under fire in the wake of Ebola cases
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| Amber Vinson |
October 23, 2014—Dr. Craig Spencer of New York City was a volunteer with Doctors Without Borders and had just returned from West Africa where he worked with Ebola victims in Guinea. He monitored his temperature twice a day since his return. After a couple of day he developed a fever and called the Bellevue Hospital. He was picked up in a special ambulance, taken to the hospital where he was put in quarantine. He tested positive for Ebola.
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| Dr. Craig Spencer |
“Here at the White House, my new Ebola response coordinator is working to ensure a seamless response across the federal government. And we have been examining the protocols for protecting our brave health care workers, and, guided by the science, we’ll continue to work with state and local officials to take the necessary steps to ensure the safety and health of the American people.
“In closing, I want to leave you with some basic facts. First, you cannot get Ebola easily. You can’t get it through casual contact with someone. Remember, down in Dallas, even Mr. Duncan’s family—who lived with him and helped care for him—even they did not get Ebola. The only way you can get this disease is by coming into direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone with symptoms. That’s the science. Those are the facts.”
***Update: Dr. Craig Spencer is now free of the Ebola virus, and was released from a New York hospital November 11.
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| Ready to go to West Africa, American National Guard practice putting on hazmat suits |
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