An Ebola survivor told a sad story of the losses and pain she and her family had suffered since the Ebola disease killed her brother who infected her.
Chinyere Enemuo is younger sister of Iyke Sam Enemuo, the Port Harcourt doctor who died of the Ebola Virus Disease. She spoke at the official World Health Organisation (WHO) declaration of Nigeria Ebola free in Abuja, Monday, October 20, 2014. While the outgoing minister of health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu at the event, attributed the successful containment of the viral outbreak to leadership and effective coordination of the collaborating partners, Enemuo lamented her family’s loses.
Enemuo said that the stigma her family has suffered is “just too much”. She said that her surname had become synonymous with Ebola and that her family was severely ostracised as a result and life had become difficult for them.
“The whole incident is not a pleasing one. It is traumatic. We are highly stigmatised, maybe owing to how the information about Ebola is managed. Once you bear our surname, people are scared of you and avoid you,” Enemuo said. “Some members of the family were expelled from work while some were suspended. Even my younger brother was given warning not to leave school for Port Harcourt or they would expel him.”
Then she made the revelation that moved the audience.
“The Ebola thing affected my family badly. I was planning my wedding, which was supposed to be on September 27, but everything was later disorganised. We lost the things we had booked; we lost everything,” she told the audience. “We had to start all over again. The Ebola thing destroyed a lot of things for us. So If there is anything the government can do to help us out, especially the regarding the stigma we face, we will appreciate it.”
Abdusalam Nasidi, the director of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control announced that the ministry of health and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control would make contributions to her wedding.
Enemuo also used the occasion to praised the government for taking good care of her while she was in isolation.
Her brother, Iyke is the Port Harcourt-based doctor who secretly treated an ECOWAS official who escaped from quarantine in Lagos and made his way to a Port Harcourt hotel. He contracted the disease from the diplomat and died while his patient survived.
