ATLAS / 1000 BC—PRESENT
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2013–2016 · Africa · Medicine

West African Ebola epidemic

Ebola spread through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, overwhelming fragile health systems before community action and international response contained transmission.

Atlas dossier · Digital & Global Age

Free device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available

Why it matters

The epidemic revealed the importance of trust, local knowledge, surveillance and resilient public-health infrastructure.

Date
2013–2016
Historical setting
Digital & Global Age · Africa
People & communities
Patients · families · burial teams · local clinicians · international responders
01

Event

Ebola spread through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, overwhelming fragile health systems before community action and international response contained transmission.

02

People

Patients · families · burial teams · local clinicians · international responders

03

Consequences

The epidemic revealed the importance of trust, local knowledge, surveillance and resilient public-health infrastructure.

Interpretation note

Evidence, memory and historical debate

This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.

Elsewhere in the world

Parallel histories near this moment

2012 · AmericasCRISPR gene editing

CRISPR-based systems made it far easier to target and alter genetic sequences, turning a microbial defense mechanism into a flexible laboratory tool.

2012–2023 · GlobalMachine learning, deep learning and AI systems

Advances in data, graphics processors and neural-network methods made machine-learning systems far more capable at perception, prediction, language and scientific pattern finding.

2015–2017 · GlobalGravitational waves and multimessenger astronomy

LIGO detected gravitational waves from merging black holes, and later observations linked a neutron-star merger to light across the electromagnetic spectrum.