How relatives of COVID patients risk infection to save loved ones

Ewaoluwa didn’t see it coming. But she will sit outside the Lagos State Infectious Disease Isolation Centre, Yaba II, for a minimum of five days hoping for the recovery of her husband.

She is one of many relatives of COVID-19 patients who are risking exposure to the virus staying on standby to run important errands in an environment already tagged ‘highly infectious’.

Unlike those caring for people down with non-infectious diseases, the slightest sloppiness on the side of Ewaoluwa and others caring for COVID-positive relatives could pave way for infection in the race around the hospital to pay for recommended medication, for instance.

Ewaoluwa suspects she might be positive as well, after her husband who returned from the United States on December 29 came down with the virus on January 10. They were planning to attend a church service when she observed he couldn’t express himself by talking.

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“He was just gesticulating, but he was breathing properly. This virus affects people in different ways,” Ewaoluwa told BusinessDay during a visit to the centre.

“I was scared. I had to summon courage because there was nobody to call upon. My kids are still young and his mum is very old at 104,” she said.

Before the symptoms worsened to speech difficulty, Ewaoluwa didn’t approach the hospital when she initially saw minor signs of fever, including rising body temperature.

Instead, she was controlling it at home with hot water steaming, a concoction of ginger, garlic, lemon and different kinds of vitamins. But still, he didn’t improve.

But her husband’s health is improving gradually at the isolation centre – he is regaining speech control as well as his lost sense of taste and smell.

However, his 17-year-old son has also tested positive on January 13, although without displaying signs of weakness associated with the virus.

While importation of COVID-19 hasn’t stopped, community transmission has been growing steadily and infected people don’t wriggle through the trouble alone. Everyone around them potentially runs into trouble either by contracting it or halting their routine flow of activities to see to their recovery.

Elizabeth Onyesom, a dealer in stem cell medicines, has been forced to sit in the same garden with Ewaoluwa, after her brother, 38, caught the virus working at a public healthcare centre at Akerele in Surulere area of Lagos.

Standing by her brother comes at a cost for Onyesom’s business. Apart from that, she has had to part with N20,000 for oxygenation and some recommended medication, even though treatment and oxygen are free.

It’s the same experience for Iyabo, a woman likely in her early 50s. She has had to stay off her business for 10 days to be with her 70-year-old mother who was diagnosed with COVID-19.

It’s been a rough experience for both of them. The daughter fears her mother’s health might worsen due to the underlying conditions of hypertension and diabetes which she had been managing. The mother during visitation hours can’t stop talking about the mental stress of seeing co-patients in her ward die from complications.

But somehow, she has survived and was on track to be discharged when BusinessDay met her.

“Chickenpox was like this and it killed a lot of people. But when the vaccine was discovered, it was controlled. This too will be contained,” Iyabo’s mother told BusinessDay.

“But in the meantime, to avoid needless loss of life, let’s just be responsible and do the needful. Wash your hands, keep your distance and wear your facemasks,” she said.

Despite the popularity of using face masks, hand washing and social distancing, many are wilfully ignoring precautions as they go about.

Access to testing remains narrowed as free testing is exclusive for those exposed to confirmed positive cases, those showing symptoms and those billed for surgery.

Meanwhile, the earliest vaccination expected in Nigeria by February will first go to health workers at the frontline of COVID-19 fight and other essential workers in immigration service, airport, the police and military.

The jury is still out on when larger population vaccination will begin, meaning the majority of the population will have to shoulder the responsibility of protecting themselves.

Unlike the first wave, the second wave is even more easily transmitted and deadlier.

“It is therefore imperative for everyone, first and foremost, to accept that Covid-19 pandemic is not over and we must prepare to confront it all over again,” Chris Bode, chief medical director at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), wrote in a circular.