Dr Phillip Ireland thought the worst when he suffered a terrible headache, racing heart rate and a fever.

"I said to myself, 'This is Ebola.'"

He spoke to Newsbeat after catching the virus at the hospital where he worked in Liberia.

His boss had just died from the illness and despite the agony, he remained calm: "At no point did I think I was going to die."

At first the doctor was turned away from the special treatment centres set up in West Africa to treat Ebola patients.

"The Ebola Treatment Units (ETU) are hellholes, full of despair, agony, dying, people crying out. The clinicians are heroes, doing their best."

His symptoms weren't severe enough and the ETU was already jam-packed.

So he went home, set up a quarantine zone and made his family go to another house.

On the day I came out of hospital, people came out in the street to celebrate. My family, friends and neighbours -but at the same time not getting too close. There was an irony Dr Philip Ireland

A father of five, his youngest daughter, 7, screamed and broke free from being restrained by her mother and grandmother.

"She ran straight to me, she just wanted to see her daddy".

Luckily, someone grabbed her in the quarantine zone before her life was put at risk.

Dr Ireland's mother and one of the clinicians from the ETU came and treated him.

"My mother made herself protective equipment to avoid being contaminated.

"She and the doctor gave me antibiotics and oxygen and I started to feel better.

"On day four they gave me some HIV drugs and when I took them in the evening all hell broke loose - vomit, diarrhoea and I got weaker.

"I was rushed to the ETU by ambulance - the same one I had been turned away from.

"There was still no room so I lay on the floor."

But drugs, oxygen and an intravenous drip kept him alive.

"After 14 days I got better and was discharged and returned home, however I was very frail."

Two months later, he is still recovering from some of the complications of the disease - mainly a neurological problem in his right hand.

"I'm so very happy and lucky to be alive."

But the illness is a humiliating, cruel one.

"On the day I came out of hospital, people came out in the street to celebrate.

"My family, friends and neighbours - but at the same time not getting too close. There was an irony.

"We have so many challenges - sickness, poverty, disease,

"I see these challenges every day, so I saw this as one of those challenges.

"Personally, I did not think I was going to die."

Dr Ireland described the ETU where he was treated as a "twilight zone, a terrible place, gloomy and full of mayhem".

But when he is fully better, he will go back in.

"We are fighting a war, our country. I'm a doctor - that is what I can do.

"It is a probability that if you have been infected, then you have an immunity, I think for about 12 years," he added.

This is the second in a series of reports on front-line workers dealing with the Ebola crisis.

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