I survived a battle with Ebola six years ago. Now I’m worried about health care workers exposed to COVID-19.
BY: Adaora Okoli —
As I read the story of two health care workers who contracted COVID-19 in Wuhan, my heart raced and a tight knot gathered in my chest. I had been there.
They were both 29 years old. Deng Danjing, a nurse, survived, but Dr. Xia Sisi, a gastroenterologist at Union Jiangbei hospital in Wuhan, did not make it. Xia contracted COVID-19 while working long hours taking care of patients. She was seemingly healthy and had a husband and a young son, Jiabao, who is now left without a mother.
In 2014 I contracted Ebola while treating the first detected case in Lagos, Nigeria. I was 28 years old and healthy — but I almost lost my life.