Freelancer working for US network in Liberia has tested positive for virus and will be flown back to America for treatment.
An American freelance television cameraman working for NBC News in Liberia has tested positive for the Ebola virus and will be flown back to the United States for treatment, the network said on Thursday.
Diagnosis of the cameraman, who the network said came down with symptoms that included aches and fatigue on Wednesday, is believed to mark the first time an American journalist has been infected with the deadly virus since the current outbreak in West Africa.
The freelancer, who NBC said works as a writer as well as a cameraman, and whose name was not given by the network, is the fifth US citizen to have contracted the disease in Africa.
The 33-year-old journalist was hired on Tuesday to serve as a second cameraman for NBC News chief medical editor and correspondent Nancy Snyderman, who is with three other network employees on assignment in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, covering the Ebola outbreak.
A Liberan man visiting relatives in Dallas recently – Thomas Eric Duncan – became the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States.