Two Americans suffering from Ebola received very good news Tuesday evening.
Ashoka Mukpo, the freelance cameraman who contracted Ebola in Liberia while working with NBC News, is doing much better while being treated at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Mukpo may be released by the end of the week if further tests confirm that he’s free of the Ebola virus, according to USA Today.
And Nina Pham, the first Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola while treating Liberian patient Thomas Duncan, had her condition upgraded from ‘fair’ to ‘good’ on Tuesday evening. Pham was transferred to the National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md., from the Dallas hospital where she contracted the disease last week. (RELATED: Nurse Infected With Ebola Being Transferred To Bethesda)
The two recovering patients are being treated at two hospitals of four in the country that are specially equipped to treat Ebola patients in isolation.
Mukpo was brought back from Liberia in isolation on Oct. 6 and has been treated in Omaha ever since. Pham was initially treated at Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas, where she works and where she treated Duncan, but moved to the specialty NIH hospital Oct. 16.
The NIH issued a statement on Tuesday updating the public on Pham’s clinical status and saying that she’s “expressed her gratitude for everyone’s concerns and well wishes.”
Mukpo tweeted on Tuesday evening that he is “in awe” that he’s been able to recover from the deadly disease.
“Recovering from Ebola is a truly humbling feeling,” he wrote. “Too many are not as fortunate and lucky as I’ve been. I’m very happy to be alive.”
A third American, Dallas nurse Amber Vinson, is being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Doctors said last week that she was “ill, but clinically stable.” (RELATED: Latest Ebola Patient Was On A Plane Just One Day Before Diagnosis)
The World Health Organization now estimates that over 9,200 people have been infected with Ebola in West Africa, while over 4,500 have died. Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have been the hardest-hit by the epidemic so far.