Ebola is real, get tested early, urges doctor who survived infection

People pass by Ebola virus health warning signs, in the city of Monrovia, Liberia. Photo / AP

Like every other medic trying to fight the spread of west Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak, Dr Melvin Korkor knows the importance of reassuring a panicking public. Despite its high fatality rate, and the belief that it is the work of witchcraft, his message is that victims may well pull through if they are treated early enough.

When he tells that to fellow Liberians, one thing gives him a unique credibility. For not only did Dr Korkor come down with Ebola himself recently, he survived. He spoke to The Daily Telegraph at Phebe Hospital in Liberia's remote Bong County, where an outbreak last month saw him and five nurses rushed to an isolation unit in the capital, Monrovia.

The virus had hit the hospital after a woman suffering diarrhoea came in for treatment, lying about the fact that she was from neighbouring Lofa County, where the Ebola outbreak has been at its worst. By the time she died three days later, it was too late.

"Some of the nurses who had treated her had come down with a high fever," said Dr Korkor, 42, who is now on three month's leave. They were tested for Ebola and confirmed positive. I knew I had had interaction with the patient and the nurses myself, and so I asked for one of my blood samples to be sent for testing too."

His worst fears were confirmed. But Dr Korkor knew that, while the virus has a mortality rate of 60 to 90 per cent, those who treat the symptoms early - a matter of keeping the body well-watered and nourished - improve their survival chances. "I asked for an ambulance to take me to Monrovia," he said.

"Then I told my wife get me a Bible and nothing else. She started to cry, but I told her 'no crying, I am coming back'." On arrival at Monrovia's Elwa Hospital, he was assessed at a sealed unit, where medics wear boiler suits, goggles and masks, and checked into the bed of a patient who had just died. What followed was a lonely, frightening experience.

As many around him failed, he put his faith in scripture as well as medicine, reading Psalm 91 from his Bible, which refers to how God will protect his followers from "noisome pestilence" and "any plague come nigh thy dwelling". Four days in, he was tested again. It was negative. "It was like being reborn," he said.

Upon his discharge, he returned to Bong County, where he found other people literally avoiding him "like the plague". As he told a local radio station: "Thanks to God, I am cured. But now I have a new disease: the stigmatisation."

It is this sort of public misunderstanding that he is trying to correct, aware that the more fear and ignorance surrounds Ebola, the more it will spread. It has already claimed more than 1,000 lives in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. "The only reason I survived is because I went to get help earlier," he said. "I want to tell the world that Ebola is real. If you start to feel ill, get tested straightaway."

- The Daily Telegraph