Health worker recovers from Ebola
A virus survivor tells Times correspondent Ruth Maclean how a touch on his arm nearly killed him.
Health worker Sulaiman Kanneh Saidu had seen enough cases of Ebola to know when he had caught it. He helped to care for some of the first people in Sierra Leone to succumb to the deadly virus, and saw dozens of people die from it.
Then, while he was working, he left just over a centimetre of his skin exposed, on his wrist between his gloves and his shirt-sleeve, touched a woman he was treating and became infected.
"I started getting symptoms. Fever, and some dizziness," Saidu said.
Koindu, where he works, is close to the border with Guinea, where this outbreak of ebola originated. Sierra Leone is at the heart of the world’s worst outbreak, which has killed almost 1000 people and sparked a global health emergency.
More than 700 of the 1779 cases of ebola confirmed by the World Health Organisation have been in Sierra Leone.
The virus has killed 961 people in 2014, in Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Ghana is on red alert after fishermen working near the Liberian border came home with ebola-like symptoms.
The patient who had infected him died, but Saidu, 47, was determined to survive. He was admitted to a ward containing confirmed cases, alongside patients who were vomiting and bleeding to death.
Medical and cleaning staff must wear full body suits, rubber boots and aprons.
When they come out they are sprayed with disinfectant and their suits burned.
‘‘I slept there for one night,’’ Saidu said. ‘‘Then I decided to take my bed out. I told them that my case was not as serious as those who were vomiting. I needed to keep away from them.’’
The atmosphere was one of despair.
‘‘I was surrounded by a lot of people dying, and when you see that happening you feel discouraged. I found stuff to do to keep my mind off it.’’
Dr Sheik Umar Khan, Sierra Leone’s only ebola specialist, delivered Saidu’s prognosis. Concerned that his patient would give up if he knew he had it, Khan hadn’t planned on breaking the news to him so soon – but Saidu eavesdropped on a telephone call and told the doctor so.
‘‘When I explained my symptoms, he advised me to take a lot of fluid that night, four or five litres,’’ he said. ‘‘But I took 10 litres.’’
Tragically, Khan contracted the virus and died on July 30, shortly after giving an interview in which he admitted: ‘‘I’m afraid for my life, because I cherish my life.’’
Saidu suffered acute chest pains and headaches.
‘‘When you sit there, thinking too much about your life, you develop stress,’’ he said. ‘‘So I asked for a radio. I knew depression means you can’t eat and sleep, and leads inevitably to death. If you are not eating, the virus will overcome you. So I forced myself to eat two meals of rice a day.’’
His mobile phone was a lifeline, and he kept in touch with family and friends. When they became too sympathetic, however, he noticed himself getting worried, and switched it off.
The World Health Organisation, which declared Ebola an international public health emergency last week and announced a $100 million response plan, said yesterday that a vaccine may be ready by next year.
Glaxo-SmithKline is due to start trials on it next month.
Guinea has closed its land borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone, as Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan approved $14 million to fight the virus.
Saidu, meanwhile, slowly recovered. After 11 days, he was well enough to return to Koindu to spread the word that survival was possible. Relatives were taken home to die, infecting dozens more in the process.
Things have changed, he said, with the right information being spread through his radio.