Ebola virus
A fifth American returns to the United States for treatment since the start of the latest outbreak.
OMAHA, Neb. — An American photojournalist who contracted Ebola while working in West Africa began his journey home for treatment Sunday, while a man who recently arrived in Dallas from Liberia remained in critical condition with the disease.
Ashoka Mukpo, 33, will be the second Ebola patient to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center’s specialized isolation unit.
Mukpo was working as a freelance cameraman for NBC News in Liberia when he became ill last week. NBC reported Sunday evening that Mukpo had started his journey to the U.S. for treatment and that he would arrive Monday morning. Mukpo’s family said Friday he would be treated at the Omaha facility.
He is the fifth American to return to the United States for treatment since the start of the latest Ebola outbreak, which the World Health Organization estimates has killed more than 3,400 people.
The hospital’s biocontainment unit was created in 2005 specifically to handle illnesses like this, said Dr. Phil Smith, who oversees the unit.
Doctors at the isolation unit — the largest of four nationwide — will evaluate Mukpo before determining how to treat him. They said they will apply the lessons learned while treating American aid worker Rick Sacra in September. Sacra was successfully treated in the Nebraska unit and was allowed to return to his home in Massachusetts after three weeks.
Sacra received an experimental drug as well as two blood transfusions from another American aid worker who recovered from Ebola at an Atlanta hospital. The transfusions are believed to help a patient fight off the virus because the survivor’s blood carries antibodies for the disease.
In Dallas, Thomas Eric Duncan was listed in critical condition Sunday. Duncan has been hospitalized at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital for one week. Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he was aware that Duncan’s health had “taken a turn for the worse,” but he declined to describe Duncan’s condition further.
Duncan arrived in Dallas from Liberia on Sept. 20 and fell ill a few days later.