NBC News's Dr. Nancy Snyderman told Rachel Maddow on Thursday night that her cameraman in Liberia who has tested positive for Ebola is in "good spirits" and that she and her crew are being "extraordinarily vigilant" with regards to their own health.
Snyderman and her team have been quarantined since the 33-year-old cameraman, Ashoka Mukpo, began showing symptoms of the disease. All of them are being flown back to the United States. Snyderman and the crew will remain isolated for 21 days.
NBC initially withheld Mukpo's name, but released it as his parents began talking to the media.
Ebola has now killed over 3,300 people across West Africa.
Snyderman told Maddow that Mukpo "is a very experienced photojournalist who we hired to augment our team on the field in Monrovia," the Liberian capital. He had been working with the NBC crew for three days before he tested positive.
She described how Mukpo discovered that he was suffering from Ebola:
"As the day went on, he started to feel just tired, a little achy. And, as you know, a lot of times when you’re in the field, you work long days and don't take very good care of yourself. We just thought perhaps he needed some rest. He signed off early, went home and called me that later than evening with an elevated temperature.
At that point, I suggested and requested that he self-quarantine himself and monitor his temperature by the hour, which he did, and checked in with me.
And this morning, he went to the clinic run Doctors Without Borders, and was checked for malaria, which is very common here, and then also tested positive for Ebola, and he is being kept in the clinic there right now."
Snyderman said that Mukpo was "in good spirits. He's ready to get home—of course, appropriately concerned."
She added that she and her crew were going above and beyond even the CDC's guidelines in their handling of their own health.
"We recognize that there is a big story back home," she said. "And, frankly, we want to be respectful to our colleagues and to the American public."
Watch the full video above.