Journalist Tested Positive For Ebola Virus In Liberia

An American freelance cameraman working for NBC News in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola, the network said on Thursday, making him the fifth citizen of the United States and its first journalist known to have contracted the virus in West Africa.

The 33-year-old cameraman and writer, who has worked in Liberia for the past three years and has covered the recent Ebola outbreak for various U.S. media outlets, will be flown back to the United States for treatment, NBC said in an online report.

Four other NBC News team members who have shown no signs of infection also will return to the United States to undergo a precautionary quarantine, the network said.

Word that a journalist had fallen ill with the potentially lethal virus seemed to raise the stakes for other members of the news media trying to cover the worst Ebola outbreak on record on the ground in Liberia, the nation hardest hit by the epidemic.

NBC declined to give the man's name at the request of his family. He began experiencing symptoms on Wednesday that included aches and fatigue, the network said.

He was hired on Tuesday to serve as a second cameraman for NBC News chief medical editor and correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who has been with three other network employees on assignment in Liberia's capital, Monrovia.

Immediately after beginning to feel sick and discovering he was running a slight fever, the cameraman quarantined himself and sought medical advice. He then went to a Doctors Without Borders treatment centre to be tested for the virus, and the positive result came back less than 12 hours later, NBC said.