US journalist's Ebola symptoms not extreme

American photojournalist Ashoka Mukpo, who has been infected with Ebola in Liberia, has been able to walk off a plane in Nebraska.

An American photojournalist infected with Ebola in Liberia has been able to walk off a plane in Nebraska.

Ashoka Mukpo, 33, tested positive for Ebola last week while working as a freelance cameraman for NBC News and was flown to the United States for treatment.

He is the fifth American to be evacuated from West Africa - in the midst of the world's largest outbreak of Ebola - with the aid of the US State Department.

His parents and doctors addressed the media on Monday after he was admitted to Nebraska Medical Center, the same place that treated Rick Sacra, a US missionary doctor who came down with Ebola and has since recovered.

Mukpo currently has a fever and is experiencing some nausea, they said.

"We are really happy that his symptoms are not extreme yet," his mother, Diana Mukpo, told reporters.

Doctors said it often takes eight to 10 days for a person infected with Ebola to show symptoms, which can begin with fever and aches and then escalate, leading to diarrhoea, vomiting, internal bleeding and organ failure.

Ebola is spread through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person - or by touching the corpse of a person who has recently died of the virus.

The virus first emerged in 1976 and so far this year has killed more than 3300 people, or about half the people it has infected in West Africa.

Mukpo had lived and worked in Liberia for a non-governmental organisation for two years before returning to the United States in May.

He went back on September 4 and had begun freelancing for NBC News a day before he fell ill.

He does not know how he became infected but Levy said his son believes it may have been when he was helping others spray-wash a vehicle.

"He was disinfecting a car in which someone had died," said Levy.

"He might have gotten something sprayed on him."


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