American cameraman with Ebola flown home

A US man who contracted Ebola while working as a freelance cameraman in Liberia has been flown back to his home country for treatment.

A specially equipped plane carrying Ashoka Mukpo, 33, has landed in Nebraska, where he will be treated.

It landed at Eppley Airfield in Omaha shortly before 8am local time, having left Liberia yesterday evening and stopped in Maine to refuel.

Mr Mukpo was working as a freelance cameraman for NBC News when he became ill last week. He will be treated at the Nebraska Medical Centre’s specialist isolation unit.

He is the fifth American to return to the US after contracting Ebola during the outbreak in West Africa. A Liberian man with Ebola who started showing symptoms while visiting Dallas is in hospital in critical condition.

The World Health Organization estimates this outbreak has killed more than 3,400 people.

Federal health officials said the US is weighing whether to institute extra screening at airports where travellers from Ebola-stricken African nations may be arriving.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said “discussion is under way right now” and “all options are being looked at”.

He told CNN the question was whether “the extra level of screening is going to be worth the resources you need to put into it”.

Dr Tom Frieden of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, says officials are looking at options “to see what we can do to increase safety of all Americans”.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to get an update on Ebola outbreak this afternoon.

In Dallas, Thomas Eric Duncan has been at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital since September 28 and was said to be in a critical condition yesterday.

Dr Tom Frieden, director of the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said he was aware that Mr Duncan’s health had “taken a turn for the worse”.