As a physician, a concerning story appeared recently on the news. An NBC news cameraman by the name Ashoka Mukpo recently tested positive for the Ebola virus. Traditionally, we have been taught from agencies such as the CDC that the virus is contracted ONLY through contact with the secretions or blood of an actively infected person. The disease then starts with flu-like symptoms on average of 2-3 weeks after contracting the disease. It then progresses to muscle aches, joint pains, fevers, chills, sore throat and a rash. Later and more progressive stages of the virus can cause confusion, coma, multi-organ failure and hemorrhage. Plus, with a mortality rate of 50-90%, the disease is extremely deadly.
However, one must wonder how a cameraman contracted the Ebola virus? Was he in direct contact with bodily fluids from an Ebola-infected person, or did he somehow contract the virus via a different method. Though purely speculative, one must now serious ask this question as Ashoka Mukpo is now being transported back to the USA for treatment.
Has he acquired a mutated form of the virus that is airborne? Has the virus in fact gone airborne? Are our 4,000 troops being sent to West Africa in dire danger if the virus has gone airborne? Will Ashoka Mukpo be bringing a highly contagious, airborne form of the Ebola virus back to the USA? Is our government telling us the full truth about the virus?
These are all realistic questions that must be asked. As the media fails to examine these hard hitting questions, it is up to us taxpaying American citizens to do so.
