Ex-Ebola Patient Donates Blood to Fight Virus in Ashoka Mukpo
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iStock/Thinkstock(OMAHA, Neb.) — The first American flown back from Africa to battle the Ebola virus on U.S. soil has donated blood to help a U.S. journalist fight Ebola at a Nebraska hospital.
The technique of treating Ebola with blood transfusions from recovered patients is experimental. In theory, the plasma fraction of the blood contains antibodies, protective factors and, in Ebola survivors, likely would contain protective factors against Ebola.
The photojournalist, Ashoka Mukpo, who had been working as a freelance cameraman in Liberia, already is receiving the same experimental treatment as the Liberian patient who was diagnosed with the disease in Texas.
Both Mukpo and Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man visiting family in America, are being treated with brincidofovir.
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