Fox News Anchor Hospitalized With Malaria After On-Air Incident

One Fox News host is extremely ill after contracting malaria.

Anchor John Roberts thinks he was infected while on vacation in Indonesia, where he visited for two weeks before returning to the U.S. at the beginning of this month.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease from tropical countries, and while he doesn’t remember being bitten, he said he started feeling sick ten days after his return.

In an interview with PEOPLE, he shared his brutal experience with the illness.

“I had been hurting from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. Literally everywhere. I was also beset with uncontrolled shivering all during my show,” he said. “Initially, I thought it was just muscle cramps and aches. But when I started shivering, I started to lean toward the flu.”

He said he “knew it was bad” after he had blood work done that revealed his platelets and white blood cells were low. “My rheumatologist told me to go to the ER,” he said. He was hospitalized, where he received an official diagnosis.

“I thought, ‘Of course you have malaria… You never do anything in small measures.’ But I was a little scared… Malaria can be deadly if left unchecked,” he said. “I don’t know exactly how ‘severe’ it was from a medical classification, but it sure felt severe… I have never felt that sick in my life.”

Roberts is now being treated and plans to return to his normal hosting duties this Tuesday, September 2.