Dr Melvin Korkor tells the Telegraph he felt 'reborn' after surviving Ebola and is now campaigning to convince infected Liberians to seek help sooner.
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.
Yet when he tells that to fellow Liberians these days, one thing gives him a unique credibility in winning them over. For not only did Dr Korkor come down with Ebola himself recently, he lived to tell the tale.
He revealed his remarkable story of survival in an interview with The Telegraph at Phebe Hospital in Liberia's remote Bong County, where an outbreak of the virus 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 to staff 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 already too late.
Dr Melvin Korkor (Will Wintercross/The Telegraph)
"By then, some of the nurses who had treated her had come down with a very 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.
"I also started having unusual feelings myself – low grade fever, nausea, and loss of appetite. It felt a bit like malaria, but I knew that within myself that something was not normal."
When he was summonsed to the offices of Phebe's medical director to be told the results, his worst fears were confirmed. But Dr Korkor knew that while the virus has a mortality rate of 60-90 per cent, those who treat the symptoms early – a matter of keeping the body well-watered and nourished – improve their survival chances.
"I asked the hospital to get 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'."
Phebe Hospital (Will Wintercross/The Telegraph)
On arrival at Monrovia's Elwa Hospital, Dr Korkor was assessed again at a hermetically sealed unit where patients are treated by medics in boiler suits, goggles and masks. He was checked into the bed of a patient that had just died.
What followed was a lonely, frightening experience. While each patient had their own private cubicle, Dr Korkor knew his colleagues were losing the fight. It was then that he began putting his faith in ancient scripture as well as modern 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. This time it was negative. "It was like being reborn," he said.
The ordeal was not quite over, however. Upon his discharge, he returned to Bong County, where he found other people quite 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 that I am a victims of."
It is precisely that sort of public misunderstanding that Dr Korkor is now trying to correct, aware that the more the fear and ignorance surrounding Ebola, the more it will spread unchecked. It has already claimed more than 1,000 lives across Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
Hence Dr Korkor's visit to his local church last Sunday, where he gave a speech about how he survived his ordeal. In a country of devout Christians, the tale of a man who all but risen from the dead has no shortage of resonance. But while he delivered "special thanks to God for saving my life", he stressed to the congregation that it was down to science, not miracles.
"The only reason I survived is because I went to get help earlier," he said. "I want to tell the whole world that Ebola is real, and if you start to feel ill, please get tested straightaway."
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