Emory doctors reunite with Ebola patients 5 years after treatment

Brantly and American aid worker Nancy Writebol contracted the disease in Liberia while working with the faith-based charity Samaritan's Purse. They arrived at Emory on Aug. 2, 2014, and Aug. 4, 2014, and were taken to isolation units.

Three weeks later, Emory announced Brantly was being released and Writebol had already been discharged.

They had recovered from the virus and Emory officials said the two were not a threat to the general public. According to Emory officials, they were the first Ebola patients to ever be treated at an institution in the United States.

It was an emotional reunion when both medical missionaries went back to Emory University Hospital on Friday morning.

They toured the communicable disease unit where they had stayed and saw their old rooms.

Both said there was a drastic difference in much more than the physical care that they received in Liberia.

They said the emotional support and connections they developed at the hospital made their time there unforgettable.

"This was a time and a place when I knew everything was going to be OK, remembering that time when things were so bad, but knowing things were going to be OK," Brantly said Friday.

With a new Ebola outbreak happening right now in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brantly and Writebol said they plan to return to Africa later this year.

It is the second-largest outbreak ever and has now spread to a new city. That is why a third patient who was treated at Emory University Hospital was unable to make it to Friday's appearance.

He was urgently re-located by the World Health Organization to go to that very uncertain area of the Congo, to keep fighting the Ebola epidemic.