Encomium
West Africa has not been spared since the worst-ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever Ebola emerged earlier this year, with deaths reported everyday.
The global death toll for the virus has reached 1,230, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday (August 19), including 466 in Liberia, 394 in Guinea, 365 in Sierra Leone and five in Nigeria.
MARCH
– March 22: Guinea identifies the Ebola virus as the source of a highly contagious epidemic raging through its southern forests, as the death toll rises to 59. Scientists studying samples in the French city of Lyon confirm it is Ebola. On the 27th it spreads to Guinea’s capital Conakry.
– March 31: Liberia confirms two cases of the virus.
APRIL
– April 5: West African countries mobilize. Medical teams are deployed at Conakry airport.
– April 8: The WHO says the outbreak is among the “most challenging” for health workers since the deadly disease first emerged four decades ago in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
MAY
– May 26: Sierra Leone confirms its first fatality.
JUNE
– June 21: The WHO says the rapid spread of Ebola in the countries concerned has occurred in part because containment efforts have been too relaxed.
JULY
– July 3: The WHO says it expects the Ebola outbreak to continue for at least “several months”.
– July 25: The virus spreads to Africa’s most populous country Nigeria, as a Liberian national dies in quarantine in Lagos. The country places its ports and airports on alert.
– July 30: Doctors Without Borders warns that Ebola is out of control and there is a risk of it spreading to other countries.
Liberia announces it is shutting all schools.
AUGUST
– August 1: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone announce a cross-border isolation zone around the epicentre of the outbreak.
– August 5: The World Bank earmarks up to $200 million (150 million euros) to help contain Ebola.
– August 8: The WHO declares the Ebola epidemic a “public health emergency of international concern”.
Nigeria follows Liberia and Sierra Leone in declaring a national emergency.
– August 12: The WHO authorises the use of experimental drugs in the fight against Ebola, after an ethical debate.
– August 13: Liberia receives doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine ZMapp, which has shown positive early results.
Guinea declares a “health emergency”, announcing a series of nine measures including strict controls at border points, travel restrictions and a ban on moving bodies.
– August 15: The WHO says the magnitude of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has been “vastly” underestimated. Medical charity MSF says the outbreak is moving faster than medics can handle.
The UN’s World Food Programme says it will fly in food aid for up to one million people affected by Ebola.
– August 18: Cameroon, which has so far been spared Ebola cases, closes all its land, sea and air borders with Nigeria.
-August 19: Liberia says it has found 17 Ebola patients who had fled an attack on their clinic and says eight medical workers including two doctors who have been given experimental US-made drug ZMapp are responding to the treatment.
-August 19: Ameyo Stella Adadevoh,consultant with First Consultant Hospital,Lagos who treated the Liberian Patrick Sawyerr dies in the afternoon.
– August 21: American doctor – Dr. Kent Brantly – infected with virus while working in Liberia discharged from hospital after recovering.
