west african ebola virus epidemic timeline of reported cases and deaths west african ebola virus epidemic timeline of reported cases and deaths in march 2014, the world health organization (who) reported a major ebola outbreak in guinea, a western african nation, the disease then rapidly spread to the neighboring countries of liberia and sierra leone with smaller outbreaks occurring in senegal, nigeria, and mali; the resulting west african ebola virus epidemic is the largest ebola outbreak (cases and deaths) ever documented. timeline, tables and graphswho flagnotationtimeline, tables and graphs at the apex of the west african ebola virus epidemictable of graphs and parameters background articles related to thewestern africanebola virus epidemic overview ebola virus disease timeline of the epidemic responses to the epidemic timeline, tables and graphs ebola virus disease treatment research post-ebola virus syndrome ebola vaccine nations with widespread cases guinea liberia sierra leone other affected nations mali nigeria senegal spain united states united kingdom italy other outbreaks list of ebola outbreaks 1976 zaire ebola virus outbreak 2014 dr congo outbreak kivu ebola epidemic list of epidemics and pandemics main article: west african ebola virus epidemic researchers believe that a 2-year-old boy who lived in the village of meliandou, guéckédou prefecture, guinea was the index case of the current ebola virus disease epidemic. the boy died in december 2013. his mother, sister, and grandmother then became ill with similar symptoms and also died. although ebola represents a significant public health problem in sub-saharan africa and was documented in tai forest chimpanzees, only one case had been reported in humans in west africa. with this background and in the context of poor public health systems, the early cases were mis-diagnosed as diseases more common to the area. thus ebola virus disease spread for several months before it was recognized as such. in late october 2014, the boy was later identified as emile ouamouno. in a tuesday, december 30, 2014 online world news story article by richard ingham from the agence france-presse (afp) that was featured on the msn homepage, it was revealed that a tree in the area where children had played at, playing with insect-eating free-tailed bats and hunting and grilling them to eat (they are a cousin of another well-known ebola reservoir, the fruit bat, whose role in this outbreak is not as clear), is believed to be the point where human infection – likely by the bats – with ebola in this current outbreak occurred, the 'ground zero' of the epidemic. this is not yet known decisively, but scientists have enough knowledge to go public with the story. timeline of reported cases and deaths