Interactive timeline: Tracing Ebola's journey from Guinea's forests to Texas

Conakry: From Guinea’s forests to the health worker in Texas, here are key dates in the Ebola epidemic, the worst to date with more than 4,000 deaths, which since it emerged early this year has spread beyond its west African hotspots.

March 2014

- 24: Authorities in Guinea and the WHO say that since January the country has recorded 87 suspected cases of viral haemorrhagic fever, including 61 deaths.

Scientists studying samples in the French city of Lyon confirm it’s Ebola.

- 31: Liberia confirms two cases of the virus.

May

- 26: Sierra Leone confirms its first case.

July

- 25: The virus spreads to Nigeria, as a Liberian-American dies in quarantine in Lagos.

- 30: Ebola is “out of control” according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Liberia closes its schools after shutting some border crossing points.

August

- 5: The World Bank earmarks up to $200 million (150 million euros) to help contain Ebola, doubling the amount in September.

- 8: The WHO declares the Ebola epidemic a “public health emergency of international concern”.

- 12: The WHO authorises the use of experimental drugs in the fight against Ebola, after an ethical debate.

A Spanish missionary contaminated in Liberia dies in Madrid, the first European fatality.

- 18-27: Several African countries close their borders with the affected countries, as the last remaining airlines suspend their links.

September

- 2: MSF says the world is “losing the battle” to contain Ebola.

Labour shortages and disrupted cross-border trade caused by the Ebola outbreak have sparked “grave food security concerns”, the UN says.

- 5: The WHO voices hope that a vaccine could be available in November.

- 9: Ebola is threatening the very existence of Liberia, the defence minister warns.

- 16: The UN says nearly $1 billion would be needed to stem the disease. The US, which has sent more than $100 million in aid, announces a plan to send 3,000 military personnel to Africa, a figure that rises to 4,000 on October 3.

- 17: The European Union pledges 78 million euros on top of 150 million already earmarked for the effort.

- 18: The UN Security Council declares the Ebola outbreak “a threat to international peace and security”.

- 19: Sierra Leone launches a three-day shutdown to contain the virus. Six days later it places three districts under quarantine which, added to two already locked down, contain almost half the population of six million.

- 30: In the US, a Liberian is hospitalised in Texas, the first Ebola infection diagnosed outside Africa.

October

- 1: A separate epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 43 people, officials say.

- 6: First infection outside Africa, of a Spanish nurse in a Madrid hospital.

- 7: A Norwegian doctor working for MSF is repatriated to Oslo after becoming infected in Sierra Leone.

- 8: A Liberian man who was the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States dies in a Texas hospital.

- 9: A top US health official from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns Ebola could become the next AIDS.

- 12: A Texas health care worker has become the first person to contract Ebola on American soil, authorities confirmed Sunday, blaming a safety breach for the spread of the deadly disease.

AFP