PROVIDENCE, R.I. (
MyFoxBoston.com) -- The Rhode Island photo journalist who tested positive for Ebola will return to the US for treatment Sunday.
Authorities confirmed that Ashoka Mukpo, who tested positive for Ebola on Thursday while working in Liberia as a freelance photographer for NBC News, will not be returning to Rhode Island and will instead be transported to the University of Nebraska Hospital on Sunday.
Mukpo had been in Liberia for three years when he began showing symptoms on Wednesday and tested positive for Ebola on Thursday. The 33-year-old's parents spoke to FOX 25's John Monahan Friday, just two days before Mukpo will arrive back in the states.
The Rhode Island native will be in isolation in Monrovia Hospital until he sets off for his return trip. His parents got the news of his illness first hand. His father received a text saying he was in trouble.
"I called him and he was very upset and had developed a fever and was feeling some muscle aches," Mukpo's father said.
His mother later received a text confirming that he had tested positive for Ebola.
"We will be tremendously relieved when he gets on that plane because I understand the plane is equipped similar to an ICU," his mother said.
Mukpo spent the last couple of years in Liberia doing humanitarian work. He was in the states this past summer but returned when he heard about the Ebola outbreak.
"He feels a tremendous responsibility to the Liberian people and when he heard about the Ebola outbreak he felt compelled to go back," she said.
His family says he'll be picked up from Monrovia and flown to Nebraska, but every minute waiting for his return is excruciating. His dad is counting the minutes, but as a doctor knows that once home his son will receive the best care to beat Ebola.
"I know that if he gets adequate medical care and intravenous transfusion he'll actually do okay," he said.
The President of NBC said that the rest of the TV crew in Liberia will be placed in quarantine for 21 days when they return.
