My Ebola story: How Nantubiro was tricked into treatment

When the Ministry of Health declared the Ebola pandemic outbreak on September 20, 2022, information dissemination was a challenge at the early stage with reports of a hostile reception by a section of the community members in Mubende and Kassanda districts. 

Ms Sylvia Nantubiro, 23, a survivor of the Ebola Virus Disease, is among those who were kept in the dark by her former masters, one of who later succumbed to the disease in Kassanda.

A resident of Mbuya Village in Madudu Sub-county, Mubende, Nantubiro is among the 87 recovered cases of the Ebola Sudan virus disease that ravaged the two districts between September and December 2022. She was working as a house girl for a family at Kikandwa Village in Kassanda District during this time. Her bosses got sick and had all the Ebola-like symptoms but were very resistant to seeking help from out and kept themselves in-house to avoid detection by the public about their sickness.

“It was during November 2022 when my bosses (husband and wife) got sick but did not want to hear any information regarding the Ebola disease. I washed their clothes and did all the house chores but my female boss became very weak. She was vomiting, bleeding and had severe diarrhoea. I kept washing their clothes,” Nantubiro recalls in her interview with this publication.

However, later Nantubiro got scared after some people in the neighbourhood claimed that her female boss would soon die of the Ebola disease. She was indeed very sick. But the couple claimed that if they visited Mubende hospital, they would lose their internal organs.

The organ harvest rumour had spread like wildfire as some people claimed that Ebola was not real but a plan by the government to harvest human organs from patients who visited Mubende hospital. 

“This is the story that my bosses had in mind and resisted going to hospital. But eventually my male boss tried to convince his wife that they should go for treatment. The male boss decided to go to hospital, leaving his wife behind. She was growing weaker but resisted for about two days,” Nantubiro says. 

She adds: “When my female boss decided to call for the health teams to take her to hospital, two days after her husband had been admitted, she was very weak and almost unconscious. She was pronounced dead shortly after admission at Mubende hospital.”

Nantubiro’s narration corroborates with the information gathered by this paper that the residents of Kikandwa Village in Kassanda District were very hostile to the Ebola emergency response teams. They often resisted any attempt to have the sensitisation for the community and contact tracing done, according to Ms Phoebe Namulindwa, the Kassanda Resident District Commissioner (RDC) and the District Ebola taskforce chairperson.

“Because my bosses had been diagnosed with the Ebola Virus Disease and I shared almost everything with them, since my job involved washing their clothes, even when my female boss became ill, it’s likely that the constant contact with them was the root cause of my sickness,” she recalls. 

“It is also likely that the Ebola health emergency teams had already listed me as a contact and were monitoring my movements. When my female boss died and was buried, I became suspicious. At the same time, I felt general body weakness, cold, and lost my appetite,” she adds. 

At first, Nantubiro got confused and worried that the rumours about patients going into the Ebola Isolation Centre at Mubende hospital were dying, were true. The fact that her female boss died just a few days after she was taken to the facility brought even more fears.

“I had conceived and was carrying a four-month pregnancy at the time I started experiencing constant colds and fever. I feared going to the health centre but was convinced by one of the health workers to visit the health centre at Kikandwa,” she says.

When Nantubiro got there, the health officials had already laid a trap. She found a waiting ambulance and health teams dressed in protective gear. They forced her to get into the waiting ambulance. She was driven to Mubende Ebola isolation facility.

During the first two days of admission, Nantubiro was not very sick and could afford to walk inside the patient ward. However, she got scared when she saw other patients struggling, falling off their beds and making uncoordinated statements. That’s when Nantubiro realised that death was a big possibility.

“I became very weak, lost appetite and lost some of the body senses. This is when I realised that my days were numbered. I saw some patients collapse and die during the more than three weeks I spent at the Ebola treatment unit in Mubende,” Nantubiro tells this paper.

During the third week of November 2022 on a Tuesday morning, Nantubiro received the good news regarding her health status. She was Ebola free. She was handed over to the team of counsellors to take her through what to expect after leaving the facility.

“I found a very kind and loving health team at Mubende hospital. In my life I had never experienced such loving medical teams. They gave us food, helped wash clothes for the very sick and became our caregivers,” Nantubiro says in praise of the Mubende hospital medical teams.

Upon discharge, she was asked about the safest place where she could resettle.
“I did not want to go back to Kassanda because my female boss had died. I wanted to reunite with my family in Mbuya, Madudu Sub-county in Mubende District,” she says. 

Her request was granted and Nantubiro was reunited with her family after sensitisation of the community. Nantubiro was supposed to be always monitored by the health teams at Mubende hospital since she was pregnant. She had been instructed not to go for antenatal care at the private clinics since she was under monitoring by the Mubende hospital medical teams. Sadly, two weeks after being discharged, it was discovered that her baby had died inside the womb. 

“I believe that my baby died because of the Ebola virus disease that affected my life. Luckily, I now feel better,” she says.

Nantubiro adds that she has not experienced health challenges after her discharge from hospital, apart from the pregnancy that she lost. She, however, appeals for the continued sensitisation of the communities against discrimination of the survivors, including families that lost dear ones to the Ebola Virus Disease.