Ebola In The United States: What Happened When

Dr. Martin Salia, 44, dies at Nebraska Medical Center after being evacuated Nov. 15 from Sierra Leone. It's not clear where he became infected with Ebola, since he wasn't working in an Ebola treatment unit. Salia is the second person to die of Ebola in the United States, after Thomas Eric Duncan.

Craig Spencer, the first person in New York City to test positive for Ebola, is released from Bellevue Hospital Center (and gets a huge from Mayor Bill de Blasio.) Spencer, 33, treated Ebola patients in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders and was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 23.

Texas stops monitoring people connected with the state's three Ebola cases, saying they are past the 21-day incubation period. "We're happy to reach this milestone, but our guard stays up," Dr. David Lakey, the state's health commissioner, says. The state also clears people who flew from Dallas to Cleveland with Ebola patient Amber Vinson.

President Obama asks Congress for $6.2 billion in emergency funds to help stop the Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and bolster screening and prevention efforts in the U.S. The money would go to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies.

Dr. Craig Spencer is well enough to pass the time in the isolation unit at Bellevue Hospital by playing the banjo and riding a stationary bike, according to the New York Daily News. Spencer, 33, contracted Ebola while working with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea and tested positive on Oct. 23.

The judge overturns an earlier temporary order aimed at keeping nurse Kaci Hickox quarantined at home for 21 days after returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. Hickox, who had defied the home quarantine, will self-monitor and coordinate her travels with state officials.

If you're an infectious disease researcher, the annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene meeting is the place to be. But not this year. Louisiana decreed that researchers who had been in West African countries in the past three weeks "should NOT travel to New Orleans to attend the conference." Prospective attendees were told they'd be quarantined in a hotel for 21 days if they showed up, even if they'd had nothing to do with Ebola.

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta releases Amber Vinson, 29, declaring her Ebola-free. She became infected while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, and was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 15.

New Jersey officials release Kaci Hickox, a nurse who returned to the U.S. after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, from quarantine in a tent outside Newark's University Hospital. Hickox, who called the quarantine "inhumane," hired a civil rights attorney to represent her. She will go home to Maine and serve out the quarantine there.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announces that his state will impose a mandatory 21-day quarantine on people arriving in the U.S. who have had direct contact with Ebola-infected individuals. New Jersey and Illinois announce their own quarantines. All affect people with no symptoms of infection.

Nurse Nina Pham goes to the White House, where she is greeted by President Obama. She says she's looking forward to going home to Dallas and her dog Bentley. "I feel fortunate and blessed to be standing here today."

Nina Pham is hugged by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as she leaves the NIH hospital in Bethesda. Pham was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 12. The other Dallas nurse, Amber Vinson, is still being treated at Emory University Hospital, but physicians there say there is no longer Ebola in her blood.

A physician with Doctors Without Borders, identified as Craig Spencer, tests positive for Ebola in New York City. He had recently returned from working with Ebola patients in Guinea. He is being treated in the isolation unit at Bellevue Hospital. His fiancee and two friends have been quarantined.

Ashoka Mukpo, a photojournalist who worked for NBC News, is released from the Nebraska Medical Center after being declared Ebola free. The 33-year-old contracted the virus while working in Liberia and was admitted to the hospital on Oct. 6. Mukpo is the latest patient to be released, following an anonymous aid worker who was infected in Africa and discharged on Oct. 19 from Emory University Hospital. Two nurses who were infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas remain hospitalized: Nina Pham at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and Amber Vinson at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

The Ebola quarantine mandated for Louise Troh, the fiancee of Thomas Eric Duncan, her son and two nephews ends after 21 days. And CDC changes its guidelines for protective personal equipment to include covering all skin and using a "buddy system" when putting on or removing gear.

The Caribbean cruise ship, Carnival Magic, returns to Galveston, Texas after being refused permission to dock in Cozumel, Mexico because it was carrying an employee of Texas Presbyterian hospital. The worker tested negative for Ebola on the ship's return. Earlier, classes were cancelled at schools in Texas and Ohio because staffers, students or parents had traveled on the same airplane as a nurse later diagnosed with Ebola.

Ron Klain, a former chief of staff for Vice Presidents Gore and Biden, is tapped to be the Obama administration's Ebola czar, coordinating the government's response to the virus. Klain, a lawyer, will report to Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco and National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

Nina Pham, the first Dallas nurse to become infected with Ebola, is being moved to the National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md., this evening, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tells a congressional hearing. New tests of experimental vaccines and medications will be underway soon, he added.

Amber Joy Vinson, a 29-year-old nurse who worked at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, is diagnosed with Ebola, the CDC reports. She reported having a fever the day before, when she flew back from Cleveland on a commercial flight. She helped care for Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of Ebola at the hospital on Oct. 8. Vinson is evacuated to Emory University Hospital, left, late on Oct. 15.

NBC's medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman apologizes for breaking quarantine by going out for takeout food in New Jersey. She had worked with videographer Ashoka Mukpo, who was infected with Ebola in Liberia. Snyderman is shown at right during an earlier appearance on the Today show.

Nina Pham, a 26-year-old nurse who helped treat Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, becomes the first person infected with Ebola in the United States.

Ebola screenings begin at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport for passengers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Washington Dulles International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, Chicago O'Hare International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport will follow. Most passengers arriving from West Africa come through these airports.

Thomas Eric Duncan dies of Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas at age 42. He had traveled from Liberia to visit relatives.

Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance photojournalist working for NBC News in Liberia, tests positive for Ebola. He is returned to the United States and is taken to Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, left, for treatment.

Texas authorities place relatives of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan under quarantine in their apartment, left. They're later moved to a private house and the apartment is decontaminated.

Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas say Thomas Eric Duncan has been diagnosed with Ebola. Duncan arrived in Dallas from Liberia on Sept. 20, and had gone to the hospital on Sept. 26 with a fever and stomach pain but was sent home. He returned to the hospital much sicker on Sept. 28 and was admitted.

President Obama outlines an increased response to fight Ebola, including building a military command center in Liberia and sending 3,000 U.S. troops to the region.

An analysis of international air travel shows that it's likely that someone infected with Ebola will board a commercial flight to the U.S. in the next few months.

Dr. Rick Sacra, a Massachusetts doctor working in Liberia for the Christian aid group SIM, tests positive for Ebola. He later recovers at a hospital in Nebraska, receiving transfusions of blood plasma from fellow survivor Dr. Kent Brantly.

Drug company GlaxoSmithKline and the National Institutes of Health begin testing an Ebola vaccine on humans. The initial test involves 20 healthy volunteers.

Dr. Kent Brantly, left with his wife, Amber, is released from Emory University Hospital after recovering from Ebola. Nancy Writebol, who also became infected while working in Africa, is released, too. Both were treated with the experimental monoclonal antibody drug ZMapp.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows use of an experimental drug, TKM-Ebola, in Ebola patients even though it hasn't gone through clinical trials.

New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, left, makes the news after screening a patient for Ebola. It turns out to be a false alarm.

Nancy Writebol, who contracted Ebola while volunteering for the missionary group SIM in Liberia, is evacuated to Emory University Hospital for treatment.

Dr. Kent Brantly, shown treating Ebola patients in Liberia at left, arrives at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment on Aug. 2. Brantly was diagnosed with Ebola on July 26. He was working for the missionary group Samaritan's Purse.

The CDC sends five people to Guinea to assist the Ministry of Health in dealing with the Ebola outbreak there. Other Americans are in West Africa working for nonprofit groups like Doctors Without Borders and Samaritan's Purse.

Richard Preston's riveting account of the 1989 Reston, Va., Ebola outbreak in laboratory monkeys introduces Ebola to popular American culture.

Researchers from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases are shocked to discover that a strain of Ebola virus was killing laboratory monkeys at a quarantine facility in Reston, Va., just outside Washington, D.C. The outbreak ended when the monkeys were euthanized. No humans fell ill, though several tested positive for the virus.