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An Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone occurred in 2014, along with the neighbouring countries of Guinea and Liberia. On March 18, 2014, Guinean health officials announced the outbreak of a mysterious hemorrhagic fever "which strikes like lightning." It was identified as Ebola virus disease and spread to Sierra Leone by May 2014. The disease was thought to have originated when a child from a bat-hunting family contracted the disease in Guinea in December 2013.
At the time it was discovered, it was thought that Ebola virus was not endemic to Sierra Leone or to the West African region and that the epidemic represented the first time the virus was discovered there. However, some samples taken for Lassa fever testing turned out to be Ebola virus disease when re-tested for Ebola in 2014, showing that Ebola had been in Sierra Leone as early as 2006.