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A special plane transporting the second American infected with Ebola has left Liberia's capital en route to Atlanta.
An Associated Press reporter saw the four-vehicle convoy that arrived at Monrovia's airport early Tuesday. The chartered plane took off at 1:12am local time.
Nancy Writebol, a missionary from North Carolina, will be treated at the same Atlanta hospital where an American doctor with Ebola already has been taken.
Back to the States: Ebola patient Nancy Writebol, a missionary from North Carolina, has left Liberia on a plane bound for Atlanta, Georgia
Writebol's son, Jeremy, said his mother 'is still struggling' but that 'there seems to be improvement.'
The two Americans infected with Ebola are getting an experimental drug so novel it has never been tested for safety in humans.
She was reportedly in stable condition before take-off, after receiving a second dose of the drug.
Ebola has killed at least 887 people in four West African countries in the largest outbreak of the disease in history.
Writebol is expected to join fellow missionary and Ebola patient Dr Kent Brantly on Tuesday in a special quarantine wing at Emory University Hospital.
Care: Writebol will join fellow infected aid worker Dr Kent Bradley (pictured) at Emory University Hospital for treatment
Writebol has shown some improvement over the weekend. She can walk with assistance and asked for Liberian potato soup - her favorite meal, family and friends said.
However, her case remains grave. She is in serious condition with a disease that has no known cure and proves fatal for up to 90percent of patients.
Jeremy Writebol believes his mother can yield a greater good from her impending return to the United States amid West Africa's worst-ever outbreak of the virus.
The attention focused on her case 'might help develop a cure and resources to help those who are suffering,' Mr Writebol said.
'I am sure hopeful for that.'
Quarantine: This is the specially-designed tent that was set up to quarantine the Ebola patients while they fly home aboard the GulfStream air ambulance
The specially-designed air ambulance, seen here taking off from Dobbin Air Reserve Base in Georgia to picked up Writebol
Dr Brantly and Ms Writebol contracted Ebola after working on the same medical mission team treating victims of the virus around Monrovia, Liberia. More than 1,300 people have been stricken, killing at least 729 of them in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Ebola has no vaccine or antidote. However, both Dr Brantly and Ms Writebol were given an experimental treatment last week, according to international relief group Samaritan's Purse.
The group originally said that only Writebol got the treatment. Dr Brantly also received a unit of blood from a 14-year-old boy, an Ebola survivor, who had been under his care, according to the organization.
Emory, where Brantly already is quarantined, boasts one of the nation's most sophisticated infectious disease units. Patients are sealed off from anyone not in protective gear. Lab tests are conducted inside the unit, ensuring that viruses don't leave the quarantined area. Family members see and communicate with patients through barriers.
Writebol and her husband, David, had been in Liberia since August 2013, sent there by the Christian organization SIM USA and sponsored by their home congregation at Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Missionaries: Nancy and her husband David were being sponsored to work in Africa by their church in Charlotte, North Carolina
At the hospital where Brantly treated patients, Nancy Writebol worked as a hygienist whose role included decontaminating those entering or leaving the Ebola treatment area. Their pastor, the Reverend John Munro, said David Writebol fulfilled administrative and technical duties.
A few weeks before she was diagnosed, Jeremy Writebol said, a doctor visited the Monrovia hospital where she worked and praised the decontamination procedures as the best he'd seen. Jeremy Writebol said she was 'really pleased by knowing that' and never thought she would be infected, despite her proximity to the virus.
David and Nancy Writebol have engaged in foreign missions for 15 years, spending five years in Ecuador and nine years in Zambia, where Munro said they worked in a home for widows and orphans.
Recovering: Dr Brantly, seen here with his wife Amber, is improving at Emory University Hospital, after receiving a dose of an experimental serum
Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention, also in Atlanta, say they've gotten some blowback for bringing Ebola cases to an American hospital. But Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC director, emphasized again Sunday that there is no threat to the public in the United States.
Some airlines that serve those nations have suspended flights, while international groups, including the Peace Corps, have evacuated some or all representatives in the region.
But the Writebols, their pastor predicted, won't be away from the stricken land for any longer than they have to be.
'They knew that Liberia was a tough assignment,' he said, comparing their vocation to the Bible's stories of leper colonies.
'Followers of Christ went into those colonies, knowing they would die,' Munro said.
'I certainly wouldn't judge them if they didn't go back, but I don't think this will deter them.'
Quarantine facilities around the U.S: A widespread Ebola outbreak in the country is 'not in the cards', the CDC director recently said. That is partly down to the number of quarantine facilities round the U.S., where the CDC can legally detain anyone who might have been exposed to a number of diseases, among them Ebola.
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