Ebola timeline: tracking a deadly virus

With startling regularity, Ebola, a disease that causes deadly hemorrhaging, has made headlines over the past several decades. Ebola disease is caused by a group of viruses known as orthoebolaviruses. The most severe outbreak of Ebola disease was in 2014, when nearly 30,000 people contracted the virus and more than 11,000 died from the disease across the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

But you may not know that 2014 wasn’t the only time the virus became international news—nor that it was the first time it was reported in the United States. Read on for a timeline of significant Ebola outbreaks since the disease was first discovered nearly 50 years ago.