Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) was first encountered in The Americas on Sept 25 and in Europe on Sept 30, 2014.

The Americas case occurred in the USA. He had travelled to Dallas, USA via Washington DC and Brussels, Belgium from Liberia on Sept 20, 2014, though without showing any symptoms. He was probably infected on Sept 15, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia and was first seen by a Dallas hospital on Sept 25 but only admitted on Sept 28. The European case occurred in Spain. She is a nurse in a Madrid hospital who showed symptoms on Sept 30, 2014. She had earlier cared for a missionary who had contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone and had been repatriated for treatment, but who died on Sept 25 2014. These cases show the number of ways that the Ebola virus can bypass even the airport screening systems and hospital environments of developed countries. It must also be noted that efforts by Senegal and Nigeria seem to have stopped initial cases from becoming epidemic.

In the face of a potential Ebola pandemic due to (i) the large numbers of persons who may have become infected in Sept 2014 in well-connected major metropolitan areas (Dallas and Madrid), (ii) the lesser capability of developing countries to screen or contain a highly infectious virus and (iii) the already-stressed public health systems of many countries in The Americas (dealing with the Chikungunya epidemic), this site will compile surveillance of this public health issue.