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(NEW BEDFORD, Mass.) — The mother of the American journalist with Ebola said that she knew exactly what was wrong with her son as soon as she heard he was sick.

Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman, was just hired by NBC’s crew in Monrovia earlier this week as they covered the spreading virus. He tested positive for Ebola on Thursday.

“My husband was on his way back from a medical conference in Barcelona, and he called me in the middle of the night and told me Ashoka was sick,” his mother Diana Mukpo told ABC News affiliate WLNE-TV. “I knew immediately what that meant.”

The family has been coordinating with the State Department and she said that the plan is for a plane to bring him back to the United States on Sunday, though to which medical facility he will be taken still isn’t clear.

“Of course it’s nerve wracking… needing to wait two or three days before he can be back to get optimum medical care,” Diana Mukpo said.

She said that in her latest call with her son he reported that he was “a little better today.”

“He was very nervous yesterday, of course, it’s a very frightening experience,” she said.

“I think he’s extraordinarily relieved that he’s going to be evacuated and come back to the United States for optimum care,” Diana Mukpo said.

According to his mother, Ashoka Mukpo had spent two years working for a Liberian NGO before returning to the U.S. earlier this summer.

“He feels a tremendous commitment to the Liberian people and the Liberian culture, and when he heard about the Ebola outbreak he felt compelled to go back… much to the anxiety of his parents and family, obviously,” Diana Mukpo said.

Ashoka Mukpo contributed to reports for various news outlets before getting sick, but also shared emotional updates on his personal Facebook page.

“Man oh man I have seen some bad things in the last two weeks of my life,” he wrote in one such post on Sept. 18, two weeks before testing positive for the disease. “How unpredictable and fraught with danger life can be. How in some parts of the world, basic levels of help and assistance that we take for granted completely don’t exist for many people.”

Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

Mother of US Journalist with Ebola Tells of ‘Nerve-Wracking’ Wait  was originally published on news92fm.com