Volunteers in protective suit bury the body of a person who died from Ebola in Waterloo, some 30 kilometers southeast of Freetown (FLORIAN PLAUCHEUR/AFP/Getty Images)
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Global health authorities are struggling to contain the world's worst Ebola epidemic since the disease was identified in 1976, with the the virus having killed nearly 4,500 people so far.
March 30: Liberia reports two Ebola cases; suspected cases reported in Sierra Leone.
April 1: Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warns the epidemic's spread is “unprecedented.” A World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman calls it “relatively small still.”
A member of the NGO U Fondation leaves a house after visiting quarantined family members suffering from the Ebola virus in Monrovia
Medical staff members burn clothes belonging to patients suffering from Ebola, at the international medical NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Monrovia (PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images)
August 28: WHO puts death toll above 1,550, warns outbreak could infect more than 20,000.
August 29: Senegal reports first confirmed Ebola case.
September 2: MSF president tells United Nations the world is losing battle to contain Ebola, slams “global inaction”.
An Ebola sign placed infront of a home in West Point slum area of Monrovia, Liberia
September 3: Epidemic accelerates; deaths top 1,900. Officials say close to 400 deaths in past week.
Third US missionary doctor infected with Ebola is flown from Liberia for treatment in Omaha, Nebraska.
September 5: Latest WHO tally: more than 2,100 dead out of about 4,000 people thought to have been infected.
September 7: President Barack Obama says United States needs to do more to help prevent Ebola from becoming a global crisis.
September 8: Britain to send military and humanitarian experts to Sierra Leone to set up treatment center; United States to send field hospital to Liberia to care for health workers.
Fourth Ebola patient will be flown to United States for treatment in Atlanta.
September 9: WHO says at least 2,296 dead out of 4,293 cases recorded in five countries.
September 13: Liberia appeals to Obama for aid to fight Ebola.
September 16: United States promises to send 3,000 military engineers and medical personnel to West Africa to build clinics and train healthcare workers.
WHO says 2,461 dead out of 4,985 infected, doubling death toll in the past month.
September 17: MSF says French nurse volunteer in Liberia has Ebola.
A health worker fixes another health worker's protective suit in the Aberdeen district of Freetown, Sierra Leone
September 18: WHO says 2,630 dead out of 5,357 thought infected.
United Nations special mission to combat Ebola will deploy staff in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone. Security Council adopts resolution calling for lifting travel, border restrictions.
French President Francois Hollande says military hospital will be set up in Guinea.
September 19: Streets in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, are deserted under three-day lockdown to try to halt Ebola's spread.
September 20: Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan flies from Liberia to Dallas via Brussels and Washington after trying to help woman with Ebola in his home country.
September 22: WHO declares outbreak largely contained in Senegal and Nigeria but says Ebola has killed more than 2,811 people in West Africa.
September 23: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates between 550,000 and 1.4 million people in West Africa may have Ebola by January.
September 25: Duncan goes to Dallas hospital with fever, abdominal pain. He is sent back to apartment where he is staying despite telling a nurse he traveled from West Africa.
Sophia Doe sits with her grandchildren Beauty Mandi, 9 months (L) and Arthuneh Qunoh, 9, (R), while watching the arrival of an Ebola burial team to take away the body of her daughter Mekie Nagbe, 28, for cremation in Monrovia, Liberia
September 26: New WHO tally: 3,091 dead out of 6,574 probable, suspected and confirmed cases.
Cuba says will send nearly 300 doctors and nurses to West Africa to join 165 healthcare workers due there early October.
September 28: Duncan returns by ambulance to Dallas hospital.
October 1: WHO says 3,338 dead out of 7,178 cases in West Africa.
October 2: Britain pleads for international help to fight epidemic at conference in London.
NBC News says American freelance cameraman in its employ, Ashoka Mukpo, has Ebola; will be flown to United States for treatment.
October 3:WHO says 3,439 dead out of 7,492 suspected, probable and confirmed cases in West Africa and the United States, which has one.
Ugandan doctor with Ebola arrives in Frankfurt from Sierra Leone for treatment.
October 4: Volunteer nurse in Liberia who was first French national to contract Ebola leaves hospital outside Paris after being successfully treated for the disease.
A Liberian burial squad carry the body of an Ebola victim in Marshall, Margini county, Liberia
Some lawmakers call for United States to ban travelers from the West African countries hit hardest by Ebola.
The number of Ebola deaths has surpassed 4,000, the World Health Organisation says (Getty)
October 10: WHO raises death toll to 4,033 out of 8,399 cases in seven countries. Most fatalities are in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
October 11: Medical teams at New York's John F. Kennedy International airport begin screening travelers from three West African countries for Ebola symptoms.
A medical staff member wearing a protective suit walks past the crematorium where victims of Ebola are burned in Monrovia
October 15: Officials say second Texas nurse who treated Duncan has contracted Ebola. Amber Vinson will be treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
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