The Victoria doctor who had reportedly quarantined himself after returning from working with Ebola patients in West Africa is actually just taking a vacation, according to the aid organization responsible for his trip.

Dr. Azaria Marthyman, who returned from Liberia on Saturday, is not in “self-imposed quarantine.” The Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse erroneously used that term in communicating news of Marthyman’s return to the media.

“I apologize on behalf of Samaritan’s Purse for this misinformation,” Jeff Adams, communications director for Samaritan’s Purse Canada, told CTV News by phone Tuesday afternoon.

“Dr. Marthyman has assured us that that is not a correct term to be applied to this situation,” Adams said. “He flew home last Saturday, and he had planned to begin seeing patients and going back to work on Monday. Over the weekend, he made the decision to take a few days off and to stay home after what had been a pretty intense and stressful couple of weeks.”

Marthyman is not showing any symptoms of Ebola, which is highly contagious, but only spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. If he had any symptoms, he would not be staying at home with his family, Adams said.

Samaritan’s Purse had been under the impression that Marthyman had put himself in isolation for a few days as a precaution, Adams said.

“He has since reassured us that that is not the case, that he simply wanted to have a few days off,” he said.

Adams said his office didn’t realize its error sooner because it hadn’t been in contact with Marthyman until this afternoon. The organization had been routing all media calls through its international office, and only recently began reincorporating the Canadian communications staff in talking about the Ebola outbreak.

“In the last few hours, there has just been so many requests for interviews all over North America and internationally that they asked the Canadian office to begin to re-engage and begin talking to the Canadian news media directly about this,” Adams said.

Dr. Kent Brantly, one of Marthyman’s colleagues at the agency’s facility in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, has been diagnosed with the disease. He is one of two Americans working in Liberia currently undergoing treatment for Ebola. The other is aid worker Nancy Writebol, who also worked with Samaritan’s Purse.

“We’re all sort of devastated by it,” said Ken Isaacs, the agency’s vice president of programs. “But at the same time we find room for optimism because in both cases the disease was not only diagnosed very quickly, but we were able to begin intensive supportive care.”

Ebola is a highly contagious disease that causes massive internal bleeding. It kills between 60 and 90 per cent of patients. The current outbreak in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone has killed nearly 700 people, making it the deadliest in history, according to the World Health Organization.

Marthyman’s trip to Liberia is not his first relief effort. He travelled to the Philippines to provide medical care to victims of Tyhoon Haiyan last year, and in 2010, he was part of a team that treated patients affected by a cholera epidemic in Haiti.

In an interview prior to his trip to Haiti, the father of seven shared why he risks his life to help others.

“We have this slogan at home that we always say at the table, and it’s ‘do your share and let the love go around,’” Marthyman said.

With a report from CTV Vancouver Island’s Yvonne Raymond