Being young and healthy helped
Ashoka Mukpo pull through Ebola News Today, but he’ll be weak for months, doctors
who treated him said Wednesday.
Mukpo, a freelance
journalist and camera operator who was on contract with NBC News when he
got sick in Liberia, left the biocontainment unit at Nebraska Medical
Center in Omaha after getting two blood tests a day apart that cleared
him of the virus.
“After enduring weeks where it was
unclear whether I would survive, I’m walking out of the hospital on my
own power, free from Ebola. This blessing is in no small measure a
result of the world class care I received at the Nebraska Medical
Center,” Mukpo said in a statement.
Mukpo will also give exclusive interviews to NBC News.
“Obviously, he has done
well and we are very happy about it,” said Dr. Angela Hewlett, who
helped lead his treatment. “We are not sure what made him better. We are
just glad he’s better.”
Mukpo, who arrived at the hospital Oct. 6, got the supportive care
that’s become standard in the United States — regular testing and
replacement of compounds called electrolytes, which get flushed out of
the body during the severe vomiting and diarrhea that mark the
mid-stages of Ebola disease. The treatment is similar to what works for
cholera.
