Before the virus ravaged West Africa, before the deaths soared into the thousands, before the outbreak triggered global fears, Ebola struck a toddler named Emile Ouamouno.
Virtually no one knew the 2-year-old by name. Now the world knows him as patient zero.
Researchers from The New England Journal of Medicine believe Emile was the first person to contract the disease in the current outbreak almost a year ago.
It's not clear exactly how the boy, who lived in a rainforest village in southern Guinea, got infected.
Ebola can be spread from animals to humans through infected fluids or tissue.
"In Africa, infection has been documented through the handling of infected chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines," according to the World Health Organization.
In December, Emile had a fever, black stool and started vomiting. Four days later, on December 6, he was dead.
Within a month, so were his 4-year-old sister, his mother and his grandmother.
The mother suffered bleeding symptoms and died on December 13. Then, the toddler's 3-year-old sister died December 29, with symptoms including fever, vomiting and black diarrhea. The grandmother passed away January 1.
Emile's father is left with only fond memories from before Ebola ripped apart his life.
"Before my children Emile and Philomène died, they loved to play with a ball. My wife liked to carry the baby on her back," Etienne Ouamouno told UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency.
The family lived in the village of Meliandou, where goats and chickens roam around the simple brown huts.
The village sits close to Guinea's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia.
It didn't take long for Ebola to spread like wildfire.Read the rest of the story HERE and view a related video below:
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