Nebraska Ebola Patient Ashoka Mukpo Tweets that He Is on 'Road to Good Health'
— -- The freelance cameraman who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia is feeling good enough to tweet today that he is "on the road to good health."
Ashoka Mukpo's condition improved over the weekend and his Twitter posts mark the first time he has directly addressed the public.
"Back on twitter, feeling like I'm on the road to good health. Will be posting some thoughts this week. Endless gratitude for the good vibes," he wrote in the first post this afternoon.
"Now that I've had first hand exp [sic] with this scourge of a disease, I'm even more pained at how little care sick west Africans are receiving," he wrote. "Be on the lookout for the Ebola Diaries blog coming soon. Will compile material from long-term reporter residents of Liberia."
Mukpo, 33, is being treated at the Nebraska Medical Center and had a blood transfusion from Dr. Kent Brantly, the first American who contracted the disease while working for a missionary organization in Monrovia. Brantly recovered from the disease.
He has also received an experimental drug called brincidofovir. Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who was treated unsuccessfully for Ebola at a Texas hospital, received the same drug.
"The team taking care of him in Nebraska now feels he has turned the corner and with time, will make a full recovery," Mukpo's relatives said in a statement released to NBC News on Saturday. Mukpo was working for NBC in Liberia when he got sick.
"Ashoka has been steadily improving over the past 48 hours. He has been symptom free during that time and is increasing his physical strength. His appetite has returned and he is asking for food. His spirits are much more uplifted and continue to improve," the family said.
Shelly Schwedhelm, the nursing director of the bicontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, told a news conference today that Mukpo is improving.
“He’s doing great. Today he’s sitting up and no longer having any nausea or vomiting and feeling pretty good and having some food to eat and so feeling really good about his prognosis and his care,” Schwedhelm said.
The rest of the NBC team that was in Liberia alongside Mukpo have now been ordered into a mandatory isolation period even though the company has said that no one else on the team is showing symptoms.
