By David Jabati
Dr. Bell confesses: “Dear all, I am sorry to announce that I have been tested positive for the Coronavirus. I started having mild headache and weakness Sunday night. I sneezed once that night and on Monday evening the sneezing and running of nose intensified. So Tuesday morning I isolated myself in my office and got tested, although I thought it was a regular cold. As I am a part of a pillar of the national response team I am exposed and will expose a whole lot of other people. If I did not I was positive or not and kept going to meetings, so I decided to think of the bigger picture and get myself tested. I don’t have any recollection of being in contact with someone that is positive and I have not travelled recently. The rest is history. I am on my way to the 34 Hospital now. I trust God and know that He will take me through.
In my job as a medical doctor I care for people and I have been the strictest of persons in terms of IPC, God only knows how I contacted it. For those who were in contact with me, please get yourself tested if you have symptoms, otherwise isolate yourself. I am now asking you to pray for me and the whole of Sierra Leone. Thank God I got myself tested. Stay at home and take social distancing seriously. God is always in control. In Jesus name, I pray!!”
These were the exact words of the medical doctor, Dr. Bell, after he was tested positive.
Dr. Bell’s courage and honesty should be emulated by every Sierra Leonean in the fight against the common invisible enemy. This is an indication to all that the killer disease is not a respecter of persons and that one can contract it without him or her knowing.
Sadly enough, a good number of our compatriots are trivializing or downplaying the very existence of the virus in the country. Some have even gone to the extent of politicizing it. But whichever way we take look at it or from whichever lens one views it, the fact remains the virus is in town and moving. It is high time we faced the reality and continue putting collective measures in place.
It behoves us all to educate the uneducated about the existence of the virus and its attendant consequences on the people and country; the rich to extend helping hands to the poor and needy; the strong and informed to share ideas with the weak and vulnerable and above all, we need the political will to contain the virus.