We signed for death to go fight Ebola

One evening in February, Ms Margaret Ogonga developed a headache, joint pains and a fever — some of the symptoms of the deadly Ebola disease.

Now staring at the likelihood of becoming the first victim out of Kenyan volunteers in Liberia to battle the disease, Ms Ogonga, a nurse, was scared stiff.

Before leaving Kenya, she had signed a document instructing the African Union to compensate her next of kin approximately Sh10 million if she died of Ebola. Might a time come when that clause would be activated? She wondered.

It is not allowed to transport the body of an Ebola victim out of the country where they die and she shuddered at the thought that she could end up being tucked six feet inside Liberian soil.

She thought about her four children, aged between five and 14, who she had left in Kenya with her husband. She reflected about her 20 years as a nurse. What stories would be told of her if she contracted the disease barely a month after she travelled to the West African country?

Her fears were grounded on the fact that earlier that day, she and her two friends had eaten rice and fish at a hotel in a Liberian market after which they had all developed the same symptoms.

WHAT IS EBOLA

The same question was ringing on Dr Kevin Nguringa’s mind one day in April. A patient had been found to have Ebola after having stayed for three days in a ward for patients with less contagious illnesses at the Redemption Hospital in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia.

Fear was rife that he may have infected other patients and medics.

Luckily, the test indicating the patient had Ebola was later proved to be wrong. Dr Nguringa breathed a sigh of relief.

That was the same relief Ms Ogonga and her friends felt when the complications they developed after eating at a hotel subsided. “It must have been food poisoning,” she said in an interview with Lifestyle on Wednesday.

Ms Ogonga and Dr Nguringa were among the 170 Kenyans who volunteered to live with the danger of contracting Ebola while fighting the infection that has claimed more than 11,000 lives in West Africa since the first case was reported in December 2013.

Of the 170 Kenyan volunteers, 78 went to Sierra Leone while the rest were in Liberia. Having been selected from the 700 who applied for a chance to tackle Ebola under the African Union, they had a brush with the viral infection between January and May this year.

Though 15 are still in West Africa to wind up the operation, none of them had been infected by last week.

Six of the volunteers who returned to Nairobi on June 21 told Lifestyle how they conquered their initial fear of the disease and how they eventually came to fall in love with their West African host nations whose hot weather, they said, gave them a harsh welcome.

Dr Nguringa, Ms Ogonga, Dr Nasri Mohamed and Ms Zeddy Chepchirchir shared their experiences in Liberia while Ms Grace Wasike and Ms Dorcas Wandera spoke of their experiences in Sierra Leone.

Dr Nguringa and Dr Mohamed were colleagues at the same department at the Kiambu District Hospital. In Liberia, they were also assigned to work in the same department; to take care of children at the paediatric department that was created by the African Union health personnel at the Redemption Hospital in Monrovia.

Ms Ogonga and Ms Chepchirchir were also working in one department at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. In Liberia, Ms Chepchirchir was sent to a clinic at a marketplace. Her work was to screen everyone entering the facility to make sure no one was allowed in if they were suspected to have Ebola. Her friend, Ms Ogonga, was a communication officer whose responsibilities entailed collecting data and writing articles for a monthly publication titled Face of Aseowa.

HOT PEPPERS

In Sierra Leone, Ms Wandera was dealing with logistics; ensuring the volunteers had all the tools needed and a means of transport. Ms Wasike was involved in the passing of messages to the public, educating them on what to do to avoid the spread of Ebola.

Having returned from the mission, they are now observing a 21-day self-quarantine period before they can return to their places of work. During the period, Ministry of Health officials call them on a regular basis to keep track of any untoward symptoms.

They told Lifestyle that in both countries, meal times were about too much oil, too much pepper and very little milk.

Ms Chepchirchir recalls that when they arrived in Liberia, they were very hungry but the food that was first served to them was a shocker.

“We were tired and hungry but the food wasn’t the best. There was some rice but it was mixed with the fish and the chicken together. We couldn’t eat. Besides, there was too much pepper,” she said, adding that she missed mursik (sour milk) a lot.

Ms Ogonga recalled: “On the first day there was one bowl that had fish, chicken, meat and some things that we later found out were snails. All were mixed up. There were even crabs in there.” 

She said the pepper was way hotter than the ones in Kenya. “They add a lot of it in their food. Without pepper they can’t eat,” she said.

Dr Nguringa said: “For the six months I was there, I never saw a cow. There are no cows there. Milk is available in powder form.”

Food aside, the temperatures were unforgiving and air condition facilities a necessity.

“It was very hot. Some areas of Kenya are hot but most areas in Sierra Leone are very hot, especially Freetown where we lived. We were sweating every time,” said Ms Wasike.

Those who were directly involved in handling Ebola patients recall the heavy protective clothing they wore and the efforts made to avoid infection.

“All the time we were smelling of chlorine, the substance with which we washed our hands. Hand washing was a part of our lives,” recalled Dr Mohamed, adding that a person could wash hands more than 10 times all in a day’s work.

For Ms Ogonga, wearing the protective clothing was necessary but uncomfortable.

“You sweat a lot. During training, you would stay in it (protective clothing) for two hours. During that time, your clothes are soaked with sweat; so much that you can squeeze water out of it,” she said.

“And once you are inside the full protective clothing,” said Ms Chepchirchir, “you cannot go to the toilet and you cannot use your phone lest you contaminate it.”

Those working at the hospital said they would dispose of gloves and protective clothing after seeing every patient to avoid spreading the disease.

HEROES WELCOME

Some scenes were also unforgettable. In their first days, the two nurses from Kenyatta Hospital were disturbed to see people walking by corpses as if death was an ordinary occurrence.

“If a person died on the streets,” recalled Ms Ogonga, “People would not touch them. You’d pass by corridors and see corpses. The people would wait for the burial team to come and collect the body and fumigate the place. But that was the right thing to do.”

Ms Chepchirchir said she was scared by such scenes.

“Because people were being stigmatised due to the disease, I believe even their relatives would not wish to touch corpses of loved ones because they would be marked as contacts and quarantined. During the first few weeks, when Ebola was still prominent, we saw over five bodies,” she said.

Upon their return, President Uhuru Kenyatta welcomed them as heroes.

“You have proven that Africa can provide solutions to its problems and that we in Kenya have the commitment to deal with our issues,” he said.

As it would have been imagined, the reunion with relatives was an emotional affair.

“My daughter, aged five, hugged me and cried, same to her father,” recalled Ms Chepchirchir.

And since their return, some people have been having reservations about interacting with them.

“But the President shook our hands. Any time somebody tries to express reservations about my presence, I tell them, ‘if the President shook our hands, why are you scared?’” Ms Chepchirchir posed.