Public Health Emergency of International Concern second PHEIC was issued in May 2014 with the resurgence of polio after its near-eradication, deemed "an extraordinary event." On Friday, August 8, 2014, the World Health Organization declared its third Public Health Emergency of International Concern in response to the outbreak of Ebola in Western Africa. On Monday, February 1, 2016, the World Health Organization declared its fourth PHEIC in response to clusters of microcephaly and Guillain–Barré syndrome in the Americas, which at the time were suspected to be associated with the ongoing outbreak of Zika virus. Later research and evidence bore out these concerns; in April, the WHO
Ebola virus disease well as treating symptoms. The disease was first identified in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks: one in Nzara (a town in South Sudan) and the other in Yambuku (Democratic Republic of the Congo), a village near the Ebola River from which the disease takes its name. EVD outbreaks occur intermittently in tropical regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Between 1976 and 2013, the World Health Organization reports a total of 24 outbreaks involving 1,716 cases. The largest outbreak to date was the epidemic in West Africa, which occurred from December 2013 to January 2016 with cases and deaths. It was declared no