Ebola timeline

DEC. 28, 2013 A child dies in Guinea from the first reported case of Ebola.

MARCH 2014 About 122 Ebola cases are reported in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

JULY 20 Nigeria reports its first probable case of Ebola in Lagos.

AUG. 2 Dr. Kent Brantly arrives at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta from Liberia for treatment. Colleague Nancy Writebol arrives at Emory two days later for treatment.

AUG. 12 ZMapp manufacturer runs out of its available supply of the drug.

AUG. 19 Writebol released. Brantly released two days later. Both received experimental drug ZMapp.

SEPT. 5 Dr. Rick Sacra arrives at Nebraska Medical Center from Liberia for treatment.

SEPT. 9 Fourth U.S. aid worker arrives at Emory from Sierra Leone for treatment.

SEPT. 25 Sacra released after receiving experimental drug TKM-Ebola, plus blood transfusions from Brantly.

Liberian citizen Thomas Eric Duncan visits the emergency department at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. He is released quickly despite telling clinical staff he just came from West Africa and exhibiting symptoms consistent with Ebola. Hospital officials say his travel history wasn’t properly passed along because of a problem with its electronic health records.

SEPT. 28 Duncan admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas after being transported by ambulance and is placed in isolation.

SEPT. 30 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms Duncan has Ebola, resulting in active tracing of 48 individuals who had come into contact with him prior to his admission. The CDC sends an infection-control team to Dallas to assist.

OCT. 3 Texas Health Resources retracts statement that EHR flaw led to Duncan being sent home.

OCT. 6 U.S. journalist Ashoka Mukpo returns from Liberia for treatment, is transported to Nebraska Medical Center.

OCT. 8 Duncan dies.>

OCT. 10 A Delta Airlines flight is quarantined in Las Vegas after a child passenger who had traveled in Gabon becomes ill. An all-clear is given after it’s determined the boy’s illness did not meet Ebola criteria. Several similar false alarms occur over the next week.

OCT. 12 A man complaining of Ebola-like symptoms and reporting recent travel to Liberia comes to Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in suburban Boston and is transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Tests come back negative for Ebola.

Nurse Nina Pham, who treated Duncan at the Dallas hospital, tests positive for Ebola. Pham’s contacts are monitored. Hospital officials aren’t sure how she contracted the virus when she had apparently followed safety protocols.

OCT. 14 Pham gets a plasma transfusion from Brantly.

National Nurses United issues a statement from nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas alleging a lack of protocols and proper equipment during and following Duncan’s treatment.

CDC announces creation of an Ebola response team to deploy to any site where an Ebola case is confirmed. CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden acknowledges flaws in the CDC’s response to the Duncan case and promises to re-evaluate CDC safety protocols.

Federal officials float possibility of designating specific hospitals to treat Ebola patients.

OCT. 15 Nurse Amber Vinson, who treated Duncan and was being monitored by the CDC, is diagnosed with Ebola. Frieden says a “breach of protocol” led to Vinson and Pham being infected. She is transported to Emory for treatment.

CDC reports Vinson flew on Frontier Airlines from Dallas-Fort Worth to Cleveland on Oct. 13 even though she was being monitored and wasn’t supposed to travel. One-hundred and thirty-two passengers are notified.

CDC and World Health Organization report a total of 9,000 Ebola cases in Africa, with an estimated 4,500 deaths.

OCT. 16 Congressional panel grills Frieden and Texas Health Resources’ chief clinical officer over their failure to contain the virus.

Members of Congress press for appointment of an Ebola “czar” and to block travel to the U.S. from the most affected West African countries.

President Barack Obama holds news conference on Ebola. Though he says he’s not “philosophically opposed” to a travel ban, he says it could be counterproductive.

Pham transferred to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.

OCT. 17 Obama appoints Vice President Joe Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain as Ebola czar.