An Ebola isolation ward in Lagos, Nigeria FLICKR, CDC GLOBALEmile Ouamouno, a 2-year-old who lived in the small village of Meliandou in southern Guinea, may well have been the first person to be infected with Ebola as part of the ongoing outbreak, according to UNICEF.
The case was first identified by researchers who launched an epidemiologic investigation this past March. The team collected blood samples from around the region and sent them to laboratories in France and Germany for analysis, according to its report, published this month (October 9) in The New England Journal of Medicine.
On December 2, 2013, Emile fell ill with a fever, black stool, and vomiting. He died just four days later, and within a month, his older sister, mother, and grandmother all contracted the disease and died. “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, Emile’s farther, told UNICEF.
It’s still unclear how Emile first contracted the ...
