American Freelance Journalist In Liberia Tests Positive For Ebola

An American freelance journalist has tested positive for Ebola while working in Liberia and is arranging to return to the U.S., his father and his employer, NBC News, said Thursday. The 33-year-old man is tentatively scheduled to be transported out of the Liberian capital Monrovia on Sunday, said his father, who is a physician in Rhode Island. NBC News, which hired the journalist as a cameraman on Tuesday, said it was helping the family arrange for his transport home by medevac. The flight was being coordinated by the U.S. Department of State, the man’s father said.
The man’s illness comes two days after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed a Liberian man in Texas had tested positive for the virus. Several American aid workers have also fallen ill during the course of the outbreak.

The father said in an interview he had hoped his son could be brought home sooner than Sunday but had been reassured that things were moving as quickly as possible. He said an infectious-disease specialist he knows in Monrovia had been checking on his son there.

The family was shaken after learning early Thursday of the man’s illness. “He called me and said, ‘Dad, you’ve got to call me right away. I think I’m in trouble,’ ” he said.

The man had also worked for a non-governmental organization in Liberia and because of his attachment to the people there, returned about a month ago to work as a freelance journalist, the father said. “I am proud that he has that integrity, but as a father, I’m very nervous about the fact that he has Ebola,” he said. “I think we’ll all feel relieved when he’s on that plane.”

Source: CNN / Wall Street Journal