Ashoka Mukpo Declared Ebola-Free; 2 Passengers To Chicago From Liberia Hospitalized

American video journalist Ashoka Mukpo was declared free of the Ebola virus by the Nebraska Medical Center and will be allowed to leave the Omaha hospital on Wednesday. Mukpo’s tests were confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Nebraska Medical Center said Tuesday that Mukpo’s blood tested negative for the virus. The Providence, Rhode Island-based journalist had contracted the disease while working in Liberia as a freelance cameraperson for NBC and other media organizations. The Ebola virus has killed over 4,500 people and has infected more than 9,000 people, mostly in West Africa, in the worst outbreak of the disease so far.

Mukpo took to Twitter to relay the news of his recovery.

Just got my results. 3 consecutive days negative. Ebola free and feeling so blessed. I fought and won, with lots of help. Amazing feeling

— ashoka (@unkyoka) October 21, 2014

The knowledge that there's no more virus in my blood is a profound relief. I'm so lucky. Wish everyone who got sick could feel this.

— ashoka (@unkyoka) October 21, 2014

Mukpo was the second person to be treated at the Nebraska hospital, where he was admitted on Oct. 6. Before him, Rick Sacra, a doctor who had contracted the disease while working in West Africa, was treated successfully for the Ebola virus in the hospital’s biocontainment unit. Sacra was released from the center late last month after entering the unit on Sept. 5.

“Our staff was confident it would be able to successfully care for another patient," Phil Smith, medical director of the biocontainment unit, said in a statement, according to CBS News, adding: "We've learned firsthand that caring for a patient with the Ebola virus presents challenges you don't face in the regular hospital environment. But our years of training on protocol in the unit and gaining familiarity with all the personal protective equipment was certainly an advantage for us."

Meanwhile, two passengers, who arrived at Chicago's O’Hare International Airport on separate flights from Liberia, are being evaluated Tuesday at area hospitals, after they became ill, NBC Chicago reported. Hospital authorities said that both the patients -- a child and an adult -- are being tested for Ebola symptoms and do not pose any immediate threat to other passengers who were on the flights.

The child reportedly began vomiting on the plane but health officials who were called to the airport to examine the child said that the passenger did not show any other Ebola symptoms, according to NBC Chicago. The child was taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, one of four hospitals assigned to treat Ebola in the U.S., and was later transported to University of Chicago Medical Center for further observation in isolation.

Later on Tuesday, the adult passenger, who had been diagnosed with typhoid fever in August, reported nausea and diarrhea. However, health care authorities said that this passenger too did not show any other symptoms of the Ebola virus, but was taken to the Rush University Medical Center for further evaluation.