Son of American Ebola patient gives update on mom's condition
It's been just a week since Nancy Writebol, one of the two Americans who contracted Ebola while performing missionary work in Africa, was brought back to the U.S. for treatment.
On Tuesday, her son, Jeremy Writebol, sat down with NBC's Matt Lauer.
"She's been doing well. We've just seen her get physically better, her eyes brighten up, her countenance goes up, smiling, even joking a little bit," Jeremy said.
However, this wasn't what he and his family were thinking when they saw Nancy being wheeled out of the ambulance on a stretcher last week after finally arriving at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Jeremy couldn't help but compare his mother's condition to that of Kent Brantly, the first Ebola patient to be treated in the U.S. Brantly was able to walk from the ambulance through the hospital doors.
Jeremy told NBC: "To see her wheeled out of the ambulance ... I was on the floor sobbing. It was an emotionally wrenching moment for all of us, I think."
Before arriving in the States, doctors gave Nancy two doses of an experimental drug called ZMapp, which had never been tested on humans before it was administered to her and Brantly. CNN reports that four monkeys infected with the Ebola virus were given the drug 24 hours after infection and all survived.
Although Nancy didn't seem to show as great of an improvement as Brantly did, she was well enough to be flown to the hospital in Atlanta -- which has an area specially designed to contain the virus, according to The New York Times.
Since then, Nancy's family and the president of SIM USA, the aid group she was working with in Liberia when she contracted the virus, have been keeping the public updated on her condition -- and it seems to be getting progressively better.
Jeremy says that he's able to see his mother twice a day at the hospital, but one family member who isn't allowed yet is Nancy's husband, David. According to WRAL, he returned from Liberia Sunday and is being kept in quarantine in North Carolina for at least three weeks as a precautionary measure.
Jeremy says that his father can't wait to see his mother again once his quarantine is over. To watch Jeremy's full interview, head over to NBC.com.
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