(Transcript from World News Radio)
The World Health Organisation has described it as the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola.
Thousands of people have died from the virus, and the threat it has posed outside Africa has ensured the disease was a talking point for the majority of 2014.
Santilla Chingaipe looks back.
"They say don't bush meats, or eat the monkey meat, for ebola is here. Ebola in the bathroom, ebola in the bedroom .. "fade under at 43s.. and fade out.
Ebola.
2014 was the year the deadly disease was under the spotlight.
And with it, came many questions.
Was it contagious? How was it contracted? Was it curable?
The WHO says African fruit bats are the natural hosts of Ebola.
It says the virus is also spread through close contact between infected animals and humans.
Charity group Medecins Sans Frontieres is one of the organisations leading the fight against the deadly disease.
Spokesman Sam Taylor says there are mistaken beliefs of how it is spread.
"It is a contagious disease but it's not like the flu. It's not a disease you can catch from sitting next to somebody on the bus. You really have to be exposed to the bodily fluids of somebody who is very, very sick to catch the disease."
The latest outbreak of the virus emerged late last year in Guinea.
By March, the country had recorded 87 suspected cases of the haemorrhagic fever, including 61 deaths.
And it eventually found its way to neighbouring Liberia.
By May, it had arrived in Sierra Leone and in July cases were confirmed in Nigeria.
This prompted Medecins San Frontieres to declare the virus 'out of control'.
Shortly after, the WHO declared the disease a global public health emergency.
Director-General, Margaret Chan.
"This is the largest and most severe and most complex Ebola outbreak ever seen in nearly 40 years' history of this disease. No-one, even outbreak responders with experience dating back to 1976 to 1995, have ever seen anything like it."
The UN Security Council described the Ebola outbreak "a threat to international peace and security" and urged the international community to send personnel to west Africa.
A separate epidemic appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in August and was responsible for 49 deaths.
In October, a Liberian man infected with the virus travelled to the United States.
Forty-two year old Thomas Duncan sought medical help at a Dallas hospital before dying shortly after.
The death caused fear and panic in parts of the US, with some people, including this woman, pulling their children out of school.
"I am scared because there's a lot of children out here this is something new to us this is something scary to us that I never thought would come here in the United States."
It also prompted US authoritiues to ramp up screenings at airports.
Airlines stopped flying to the worst affected countries, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
And some countries, including Australia, began to ban the entry of individuals from these countries.
Following pressure from aid groups and the United Nations, some western countries began responding to calls for personnel on the ground to help contain the spread.
United States President Barack Obama announced plans to send 3,000 troops to west Africa.
"It's spiralling out of control. It is getting worse. It's spreading faster and exponentially. Today thousands of people in West Africa are infected. That number could rapidly grow to tens of thousands and if the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected with profound political, economic and security implications for all of us."
Cuba sent more than 400 doctors and nurses to west Africa - the largest contribution of medical personnel by any single country.
Britain also pledged an extra 750 troops, aircraft and a naval vessel to Sierra Leone.
British Health minister, Jeremy Hunt, said it was vital in trying to contain the disease.
"RFA Argus is going to be moored off the coast of Sierra Leone. Three helicopters are going to be based on the ship and that will help us in our decision to help equip and build up of 700 beds in five different field hospitals that will treat 9,000 people. This will make a significant difference in the efforts in that country to combat the disease."
Australia had, up until then, only donated $18-million.
The federal government resisted calls for on-the-ground deployment of troops, health officials or equipment.
But in November, the Abbott government announced it would commit an additional $20 million to allow Australian volunteer medical workers to work in a British field hospital in Sierra Leone.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Canberra-based Aspen Medical would oversee the operation.
"It's likely that there will be some volunteers involved. They will, of course, be paid. They will be volunteering to do the job, but while they are doing the job they'll be paid. Whether it's a very small number, or a somewhat larger number, that's a matter for Aspen. One of the important things, though, is that Aspen will be required to ensure that any Australians who are involved in treating the Ebola victims in West Africa do serve a quarantine period in country before coming back to Australia."
Chief executive of Aspen, Glenn Keys said many of the volunteers would be doctors, nurses, environmental health workers and logisticians.
He said Australians would account for up to 20 per cent of a team of about 200.
"This isn't a static number. We will be there for several months. We will be rotating crews through all the time. You do that for a number of reasons but critically because you don't want people to become fatigued, or make mistakes. We are asking people to take time out of their lives and schedule to go and assist. While that's really important, we realise they have full-time jobs back here. We will be rotating several crews through. So there could be quite large numbers of Australians rotate through over the period of the deployment which is still to be defined but it will be in the region of six to eight months."
Although the federal opposition welcomed the move, it did question the government's delay in sending personnel.
A view that was shared by Greens Senator Richard Di Natale.
"It's been shameful the Australian response. The delays have cost people their life. It's all very well and good to run around talking about shirtfronting Russian Presidents or talking tough on terrorism, talking about evil death cults, but this is as much a security and economic threat as it is a health and humanitarian catastrophe."
Meanwhile, back in west Africa ...
There were turning points with Nigeria declaring itself Ebola free, and the disease being confined to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Aid groups said the rates of infection in Liberia, which accounted for the majority of deaths, had been slowing.
Trials of experimental drugs and serums were underway with the WHO hopeful of beginning distribution in the New Year.
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