‘I got Ebola from my dying mum and survived’

Mid-July when Alhassan Kemokai cuddled his dying mother, stroking her face and holding her hands, it never occurred to him that it was an open invitation to death.

The mother had Ebola ─ but he did not know. He thought it was a case of malaria, manifested in high fever, diarrhoea and sore throat.

Ten days after the death and burial of his mother, he too started having high fever, diarrhoea and sore throat.

By then, he had become aware of the symptoms of Ebola which had been ravaging his country, Sierra Leone. The symptoms are very similar to those of malaria.

Immediately, he started avoiding members of his family so as not to infect them. After three days of high fever, he decided to trek to Kenema government hospital ─ which was three miles away.

He made sure he avoided contact with everybody else; and despite all the emotional struggle he made it to the hospital.

He got treatment and was discharged after 12 days.

Speaking on video to The Guardian of London after he was certified Ebola-free, Kemokai described his experience with a big sense of relief.

“I walked among corpses,” he said. “It is terrible. I’ve seen today one, two, three corpses come out. Four corpses come out. To see myself come out, I am very excited. I am very happy. I am out in the world today.

“I have been admitted for the past 11 to 12 days in the Ebola ward. And I’m very excited that I’m out today. I see myself as a free man.

“My mother died on the 19th (of July) so I was observing myself… 19th… 20th…

“On the 28th, I started feeling a fever. I told my wife and children not to come near me please. When  I discovered I was infected with the disease I had to abandon (my) room and move into (another) room… where I was sleeping.

“It is a single bed with a foam mattress. These (beddings and clothing) have now been discarded by my wife. They are now preparing for burning. She has burned most of the things that were in (my room).”

He described his experience on his way to the hospital as “sad”. He avoided contact with other people so that they would not be infected too.

“When I was walking everyone was looking at me. I was very sad as I was going. I saw shivering. Every 10, 15 or 20 minutes, I had to go to the toilet. I used the pathway to get to the hospital, the bush route,” he said.

He was then placed in an isolation ward. Meanwhile, his brother and sister ─ who also cared for their dying mother ─ had been infected and were admitted into the hospital.

“I felt like I was in the other world,” Kemokai recalled, “that the nurses were indeed angels that the two books, the Bible and the Qu’ran, describe that when you die, people will come and judge you. That the angels will come and judge you.

“When we saw nurses we could hardly identify them. Each time I saw them I thought they were angels coming to question me.”

Kemokai survived the disease ─ which kills anything between 60% and 90% of its victims.

Not only that he survived, his brother and sister also did, leading to scientific inquiry into a possible genetic link: a person’s immune system might be able to withstand the virus more than others’.

And having survived Ebola, Kemokai has now developed the antibodies, meaning he cannot be infected again.

He now freely plays with his family members.

“Now that I’m out of hospital I play with my entire family. I play with Miza. We are now playing together. We do things together, we eat together, we do everything together.”