The Ebola outbreak apparently started with a 2-year-old in rural Guinea


A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
The world's biggest and deadliest Ebola outbreak began with a 2-year-old boy in a village in Guéckédou, Guinea — near the West African country's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia — a team of researchers reports in The New England Journal of Medicine. The boy died of unidentified causes on Dec. 6, followed a week later by his mother, then 3-year-old sister, then grandmother. Mourners at the grandmother's funeral brought the virus to other villages.
The early victims had symptoms of Ebola, but the outbreak is in a part of Africa with no history of the disease, so health workers weren't trained to spot or treat the disease. And because it's a heavily trafficked region, the disease has been very difficult to track down and isolate.
Doctors Without Borders helped identify and treat the outbreak in March, and health officials thought they had it contained by April. The outbreak flared up a month later, worse than ever — there are now officially 1,779 cases, including 961 deaths, but health authorities believe there are more cases. The World Health Organization has declared an international health emergency.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
So how did the 2-year-old get the virus? "We suppose that the first case was infected following contact with bats," Sylvain Baize at France's Pasteur Institute, and one of the researchers studying the outbreak, tells The New York Times. "Maybe, but we are not sure." The blood of fruit bats, as well as monkeys and apes, can infect people, but some researchers think that fruit with bat guano on it can also spread the virus to humans.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Peter Weber is a senior editor at TheWeek.com, and has handled the editorial night shift since the website launched in 2008. A graduate of Northwestern University, Peter has worked at Facts on File and The New York Times Magazine. He speaks Spanish and Italian and plays bass and rhythm cello in an Austin rock band. Follow him on Twitter.
-
FDA to re-evaluate effectiveness of common nasal congestion ingredient
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
A flesh-eating bacteria is growing in numbers due to climate change
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published
-
CDC recommends new RSV vaccine for infants under 8 months
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published
-
U.S. health agency advises easing federal marijuana restrictions
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Medicare drug price negotiations start with 1st 10 drugs, pharmaceutical industry lawsuits
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Air pollution may be increasing antibiotic resistance, new research suggests
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published
-
Tick bites could cause an allergy to red meat, CDC says
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published
-
The danger of drinking too much water
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published