US Journalist With Ebola Leaves Liberia to Be Treated in Nebraska
— -- The U.S. journalist who tested positive for Ebola while working in Liberia has reportedly left the West African country for Nebraska, where he will be treated.
Ashoka Mukpo, who was working as a freelance cameraman for NBC, left Liberia in a specially equipped plane at 5:30 p.m. ET, NBC reported.
He will be the second American to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center when he arrives in Omaha, which is expected Monday morning. The Nebraska facility treated Dr. Richard Sacra last month after he also contracted the disease in Liberia.
The Nebraska Medical Center is one of only four biocontainment units throughout the United States. There is another unit at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Md., one in Missoula, Mt., and a third at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Ga., which is where Dr. Kent Brantley and nurse Nancy Writebol, the first two Americans to catch the disease, were treated.
Mukpo's mother, Diana Mukpo, told ABC News affiliate WLNE-TV that the family has been coordinating with the State Department.
According to his mother, Ashoka Mukpo had spent two years working for a Liberian NGO before returning to the United States earlier this summer.
"He feels a tremendous commitment to the Liberian people and the Liberian culture, and when he heard about the Ebola outbreak he felt compelled to go back ... much to the anxiety of his parents and family, obviously," Diana Mukpo said.
Ashoka Mukpo contributed to reports for various news outlets before getting sick, but also shared emotional updates on his personal Facebook page.
"Man oh man I have seen some bad things in the last two weeks of my life," he wrote in one such post on Sept. 18, two weeks before testing positive for the disease. "How unpredictable and fraught with danger life can be. How in some parts of the world, basic levels of help and assistance that we take for granted completely don't exist for many people."
