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12/22/2024 02:22:47 pm

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American News Cameraman With Ebola Arrives in Nebraska for Treatement

Ashoka Mukpo

(Photo : REUTERS/MITCHELL LEVY/HANDOUT) NBC freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo who contracted Ebola in Liberia, is shown in this family photo released on October 6, 2014.

American video journalist Ashoka Mukpo, who was infected by the Ebola virus while working in Liberia, is reportedly now at the Nebraska Medical Center where he will be placed in a specialized containment unit while being treated.


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Mukpo was immediately loaded onto a stretcher as an ambulance waited for him after the jet he rode in arrived in the area.

Mukpo has been working as a freelance cameraman for NBC news and reportedly became ill just last week. He is now the fifth American to be infected with the virus and transported back to the United States for treatment.

Health officials are not yet sure when or how Mukpo got infected with the disease, but according to the patient he helped clean a vehicle where someone had died from Ebola.  

As soon as he got to the hospital, Mukpo displayed symptoms of nausea and fever which means that the disease had not spread yet and is still considered to be at a mild stage.

The doctors at the Nebraska hospital will be evaluating Mukpo before they determine how to treat him. They will possibly be treating him the same way American aid worker Rick Sacra was treated, added hospital workers.

Sacra was one of the workers who was sent back to the U.S. for treatment after being contaminated with the disease. Following three weeks of treatment, Sacra was reported to be in stable condition and released late last month.

An experimental drug called TKM-Ebola was used on Sacra, and may also be used on Mukpo. Also, Sacra had to undergo two blood transfusions that were said to be from another American aid worker who was treated in Atlanta. The blood from a survivor is said to contain antibodies that can fight off the disease.

This is not the first time that Mukpo has gone to Liberia as sources confirmed that the cameraman already lived there for two years when he worked as a researcher for the Sustainable Development Institute. The said institute was a non-profit organization that focused on the concerns of the workers in the area.

He is originally from Providence, Rhode Island and he only went back to his hometown in May this year.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization recently released a statement noting that they have estimated more than 3,400 people have died from the disease in the regions affected in West Africa.

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