The Ebola doctor who survived the killer virus

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <h1 itemprop="headline name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 8px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Dr Melvin Korkor tells the Telegraph he felt 'reborn' after surviving Ebola and is now campaigning to convince infected Liberians to seek help sooner.</span></h1> <div class="artIntro" style="border-top-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px; padding-top: 3px;"> <div class="gutterUnder" style="margin-bottom: 15px;"> <div class="InSkinContainer inSkinContainerId-11032585" id="InSkinContainer_myInSkin1" style="background-image: url(http://inskin.vo.llnwd.net/o21/InSkinFiles/jpgs/telegraph/article_player.jpg); height: auto; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 620px;"> <div class="InSkinContentContainer inSkinContentContainer-11032585" id="InSkinContentContainer_myInSkin1" style="height: 315px; margin: 60px 30px 40px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 560px; z-index: 2;"> <div class="videoPlayer" id="playerwrapper" style="height: 315px; width: 560px;"> <div class="innerWrapper" style="height: 315px; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 560px; z-index: 10000;"> <div style="position: absolute;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><iframe src="http://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.1.62_en.html#goog_405353851" style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: relative;"></iframe></span></div> <span style="background-color: black;"><video class="video" preload="auto" src="http://player.ooyala.com/player/ipad/E2N2xtbzqFv5hm8nqgdHaeMRFduudjAT.m3u8" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #282828; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; height: 315px; left: 0px; position: absolute; width: 560px; z-index: 10000;" x-webkit-airplay="allow"></video></span><div class="oo_promo" style="-webkit-background-size: contain; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: #1a1a1a; background-image: url(http://cf.c.ooyala.com/E2N2xtbzqFv5hm8nqgdHaeMRFduudjAT/AZ2ZgMjz0LFGHCPn4xMDoxOjBrO-I4W8); background-position: 50% 50%; background-size: contain; color: #282828; cursor: pointer; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; height: 315px; position: absolute; width: 560px; z-index: 10001;"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <br /> <div class="firstPar"> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div> </div> <div class="secondPar"> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div> </div> <div class="thirdPar"> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div> </div> <div class="fourthPar"> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div> </div> <div class="fifthPar"> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">^{<img caption="" copyright="Will Wintercross/The Telegraph" declared-caption="" height="287" name="Dr-Melvin-Korkor" photographer="" refid="3008878" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03008/Dr-Melvin-Korkor_3008878c.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; overflow: hidden;" version="c" width="460" />}<br />^{Dr Melvin Korkor (Will Wintercross/The Telegraph)}</span></span></div> </div> <div class=" related_links_inline" id="tmg-related-links" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 8px; overflow: hidden; width: 460px;"> <div class="headerOne styleOne" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(0, 122, 143); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 2px 0px 13px;"> <h2 style="border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px 0px 0.1em; padding: 0px 5px 1px 0px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Related Articles</span></span></h2> </div> <ul style="list-style-image: url(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/template/ver1-0/i/articleBullet.gif); list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 0px 0px 5px;"></ul> </div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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."</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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'."</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alttext="Phebe Hospital " caption="Phebe Hospital " copyright="Will Wintercross/The Telegraph" declared-caption="" height="287" name="ebola-Phebe_Hospital" photographer="" refid="3008583" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03008/ebola-Phebe_Hospit_3008583c.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; overflow: hidden;" version="c" width="460" /><br />^{Phebe Hospital (Will Wintercross/The Telegraph)}</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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".</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Four days in, he was tested again. This time it was negative. "It was like being reborn," he said.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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".</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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."</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div> <div style="padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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."</span></div> </div>

The Ebola doctor who survived the killer virus

Dr Melvin Korkor tells the Telegraph he felt 'reborn' after surviving Ebola and is now campaigning to convince infected Liberians ...

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