Monrovia – Dr. Nathaniel Blama was prepared for the best and the worst when he feared he may have been infected with the deadly Coronavirus. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, now fully recovered from the virus sat down for an exclusive interview with FrontPageAfrica Monday to talk about his recovery process, the treatment procedure and how he is adapting to his post-COVID-19 ordeal, the stigmatization and picking up the pieces of his most harrowing experience, combatting the killer pandemic.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: It’s been a few days since you left the hospital, can you tell us how you feel since you left?
DR. NATHANIEL BLAMA: Well, I feel okay, I feel strong, I feel excited that I’ve been able to reunite with my family, my friends, my loved ones; it’s something that anybody would miss. Getting back on your feet is something that everybody looks forward to, especially having good health is something that everybody prays for. It’s been exciting amid mixed reactions. I’m happy that I’ve recovered from it. This is something that is striking the whole world. This is something that has claimed over a hundred and sixty thousand lives. This is something that has claimed lives in some of the best health systems in the world. Talking about the rich, the poor and people of all colors but I survived it so I’m just grateful to God. It’s not because of any extra that I did or the medical people did. So, I’m very happy, very excited to be alive.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: Let’s go back to the moment you realized that you may have this infection. You had come from Switzerland, how many hours, how many days did it take you to realize that you had contracted COVID-19?
DR. BLAMA: Actually, I traveled from here on Sunday, the 8th of March, I went to Europe. I got in Brussels on the morning of the 9th, connected a flight from Brussels to Geneva on the 9th. I was there until the 13th and returned to Monrovia on the 13th. I got home feeling normal, went to bed and then I got up in the morning feeling heavy cold in my chest. I wasn’t coughing then so I sent to buy some regular concoction. Like you take ginger, lime and I started to treat myself with some antibiotics.
Of course, you know there was COVID-19 in Europe at the time, in Switzerland, it’s mountainous so there was still snow on the outskirts of Geneva so I felt that it was the cold from there.
I did that treatment, I started feeling better – that was on Saturday. On Sunday morning I was chatting with Dr. Brown – Jerry Brown – and I asked him, ‘Can we talk?’ and he said ‘Yes, but I’m not in the country, I’m in Congo Brazzaville’ so I asked that I could call him on WhatsApp he said yes. And I explained to him that I just came from Switzerland and I’m experiencing this strange cold and I’m taking treatment for it but I wanted to know if we have testing capabilities in town for the COVID. He said, yes, we have some testing kits so let me link you with Dr. Kateh which he did, that was Sunday morning and they said they were sending a team here to do my test. They came, they collected my specimen. They didn’t come until 5pm. The next morning which was on Monday morning Dr. Kateh called me and he said buddy your test came back positive. I said okay so what do we do? And he said we have to take you into treatment – isolation and treatment and I said okay. From there on things happened so fast.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: What was going through your mind when you got that call from Dr. Kateh?
DR. BLAMA: Well, the thing is the way I do things, I prepare myself for both sides of the coin. It’s either yes or no, it’s either positive or negative. So, when I even called to do the test, I said to myself what if it came out positive – these are the ramifications and if it came out negative, I can move on with my life. In fact, there were friends that were supposed to meet me on Sunday, but I pushed them off because I was awaiting the results. There were three or four different meetings. People were supposed to meet me on the holiday, on Sunday – I was supposed to go to church on Sunday but I kept pushing off because I just wanted to be sure that I’m in the right place at the right time so, I didn’t take the meetings hoping that by Monday when the result came out, then I can go on.
If it came positive then I can go into treatment because I’ve read about and everybody saying early treatment can lead to recovery and once you don’t have an underlining health condition, your recovery can be faster and I know I don’t have any underlining health condition so I felt a little positive within myself.
I knew that there was going to be confusion, public perception knowing the society we live in, but I chose the latter, I rather the confusion now than hide it and tomorrow it becomes worse. So, I chose the latter to just come forward and do the test. So, whatever result at that point, I was very calm and was prepared for the results to deal with it.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: Let’s go the infection, do you remember how you got the virus?
DR. BLAMA: This is something that I would not remember because… I said to someone it’s like a bullet – it hits you before you know you’ve been hit by a bullet. If I ask you now, Rodney, 30 minutes ago, where did you take your breath, you’ll not know where you took that air. So, that’s how this thing is. I was very, very careful. I had hand sanitizer, I had Clorox wipe a small one – I had it in my pocket – before I sit anywhere, I will wipe the place, when I get up from there, I wipe my hands. The Liberian Consul General kept laughing at me. He said I was too careful with the place…
Maybe it’s the seat I sat in on the flight someone else sat there and contaminated the place or maybe on a counter when I went to buy something.
The meeting we went for had strict health restrictions and rules – we were keeping the three feet distances and taking everybody’s temperature and making sure there was nobody there coughing, there was nobody sick and they had doctors on the scene checking everybody. In fact, one of my colleagues went ahead of me. He was there in Switzerland longer than me. So, it could be either on the flight on my way going – the flight from Monrovia to Brussels and Brussels to Geneva or on my way back. Anywhere it could have happened.
I don’t remember coming across anybody who is sick symptomatic, sneezing in my face or coughing when I was close, no, no.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA There have been lots of uncertainty about the treatment, people are not sure how it’s being treated in Liberia, you spent some time at the 14 Military Hospital, first of all, what is the condition like there and what are some of the treatment they gave you to recover?
DR. BLAMA: Well, I can tell you about the condition, the condition there now is much improved. When I got there, at that point, it was there they were still trying to put it together. As you are quite aware, I can say I was the first patient, the first tested positive for COVID-19 and the first patient at the 14 Military Hospital because it has yet not been inaugurated. They were still doing the finishing touches. They had electricity there, but they improved over time. The light kept cutting off in the first few days and then over time it became stable and it went through the day and the night. Obviously, there is a first time for everything. I didn’t expect everything to be rosy knowing that this is the first of its kind in Liberia.
Even though we say we prepared in reality we were really not prepared so I could withstand the tension working with the health workers to set things in place.
As it relates to the treatment I maintain that the people at the health facility are very trained and the treatments that anybody will receive will be based on your body type, based on your condition, what may work for me may not work for you, your condition may not be like mine. I have tried to refrain from listing – you know how our society is – I try to refrain from listing what I was treated with because people have the tendency of not coming forward because they’ll say Blama took this so once I take it I’ll be okay. My resistance could be higher than someone or my antibiotic could be more robust than someone and my immune system could be higher, and you know. You take the same paracetamol I took and recover you took it and you don’t get well.
The worst-case scenario is just not getting well, it’s the fact that you’re hiding and treating yourself you could infest several others. So, my call to everybody is if you feel symptomatic go and do your test. Once it’s positive, the isolation and treatment part would be based on the health professionals and on the person’s own personal condition.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA Let’s look at the Liberian environment, people are unsure about whether the virus is in Liberia, you’ve been through the experience, what advice do you give to people who are still doubting?
DR. BLAMA: That is my greatest fear, it’s not the virus itself, it’s the misinformation, the conspiracy theory that people have tried to put in the communities is just fake. I came out people started saying ‘Look how he looks healthy’ – there is nowhere where all of the examples of people recovering from the coronavirus where the virus had drained them. It’s your mental ability to withstand it that would either keep you fit or keep you down. Some people lose appetite, some people get afraid and other underlining factors exacerbate pressure and all of that affects them. So, coronavirus will affect you, but these will also affect you more greatly.
I kept my mental stability, that’s one positive thing I did. So, people who think this thing is fake, it’s not fake.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: Did you get to the ventilation stage?
DR. BLAMA: I never got to a crisis where it came to a point where they had to put a ventilator on me or oxygen. I didn’t get to that point. I ate regularly, I drank a lot of fluid, a lot of water, a lot of juices. I had a lot of eating and drinking. It’s not like any point in time I lost appetite, lost smell or taste, it didn’t get to that point. I don’t know why I don’t know-how. My case is different. But I can tell anybody that even now while I’ve recovered there are some strange things that I never used to notice is coming back. For example, sometimes when I talk, I get choked by my spit – something that has never happened to me before. And so, it’s real.
My point is that responsible government will not go and take sickness and bring it on the people. So, how do I get it, go and get injected? It doesn’t make sense to me. Some people saying, I collected the money – I collected money for what? Who will give you money? So, say America, who is giving America money so that the thing would spread across America? Who’s going to give Britain money so that at the point that the Prime Minister came down with it? He even went into the ICU and spent days there before he came out. So, they should stop that. It’s just misinformation. You know how our people are, they’ll be saying this thing is fake. Since I came out that has been my message. People keep saying it’s not true.
My fear that kind of thing not being true and people do things not observing the social distancing and they keep infesting one another and we live in a community and society where people still communally engage one another and they keep infecting one another and it could become a real problem for the society.
Right now, 14 Military Hospital, my understanding is that is overwhelmed with new cases and they ran out of beds. When I was there, I had access to one room with a bed, air-conditioner, self-contain bathroom. It was like an apartment; French people call it Entre Couchette. That’s what it was like. They are pairing people in rooms because of the space because the numbers have increased. The thing is real at the point now it’s claiming lives, it’s something we need to take very seriously.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: You’re the index case, how do you compare the time when you got there and when you left, what was the situation like?
DR. BLAMA: When I got there, I was alone, then Philips joined me, then Linda Russ joined, the next time we had James and Rueben and this other boy. Up to the time I left, those were the confirmed cases. When I was leaving from there to go into recovery, there were three and when I left the number kept growing and since then the number has grown.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: How many tests did you do before they permanently lifted you?
DR. BLAMA: Two tests. They did the first test and it came negative and they did another one within 24 hours and it came negative.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: People are wondering why you stayed so long after they ran those tests, was it an observation?
DR. BLAMA: After the negative tests, government set up a protocol where you go into observation and recover. To a larger extent, it’s a very good program because the recovery period is not the health recovery. It’s the mental recovery. You’ve come from death roll, you need to accept yourself before you go back into the community, so it gives you time to soberly reflect, move around, feel like a normal human being then before you move into the community. At least family members can interact with you even though you keep observing the social distancing so that time helps you to mentally recover some things that make you feel confident again about life and move back into the community. You can even exercise if you want, so, I think that portion of recovery is mentally good. I was there for another two weeks before being formally discharged.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: Besides the denial of the COVID-19 being in Liberia, let’s come to the issue of stigmatisation. Do you feel stigmatized since you left?
DR. BLAMA: I’m of a different view that stigmatization is with a person. If you think that someone is doing this and it’s stigmatizing you, then you’ll feel stigmatized. But one thing I prepared my mind for is one of those things. I know the society we live in and how people interpret, and I know how people can be, they’re thinking and rationalizing, I know how people can brand people, so I was prepared for it. I really don’t feel bad when people try to ostracize me or resent me.
One thing that I said was that I’m happy that I’m alive. Worst-case scenario I would have been dead. So, I’m alive nobody can breathe in the space that I’m breathing and say don’t breathe this air.
For me, I look at it in a more positive sense. Yes, there are people who were associated with me – you’ll not even believe, Rodney, if you and I had had coffee one week before this, maybe people were going to point hand to you and say you were with me so they must quarantine you as well. There were people who I had not seen for more than six months, there were people who had I not seen for almost a year were called into questioning because somebody knows that they were associated with me, they related to me. People who I don’t even talk to, people who I don’t even interact with who work at the EPA where we don’t work in the same building – we have an annex – some of them work in the annex, they know they work at the EPA, their community thinks some of us were contaminated so the whole EPA is contaminated. I didn’t even go to work.
I came on a Friday, I felt I was not well, Sunday I called for the testing, Monday I went into treatment, Monday was a holiday. People branded the agency as everybody that worked there was positive and so people were ostracized, people were humiliated in communities.
Like one of the inspectors I work with in Bomi, this is someone I have not seen in over three months, the county health officer of Bomi called him into questioning that he went to meet me at the airport. Tell me who can do that?
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: Let’s clear this off, there are a lot of gossips, a lot of speculations: when you got back in the country, did you stop anywhere along the way. There are reports that you stopped at McGill’s house, you stopped at the President’s house?
DR. BLAMA: I didn’t stop at anybody’s house. I didn’t get off my car. There was one family who I stopped at because someone had given me something to drop off on the Du Port Road and I was there for less than three minutes, I left. It’s that one family. And that family was taken in for quarantine for more than 21 days, they were tested more than two times, and everybody was cleared. So, I mean I didn’t stop at McGill’s house. I learned McGill was out of town when I got back in, I think he was in Gbarpolu. You travel for a whole day the first thing you want to do is to come home, take a shower and jump on your bed. Why do I have to go all over the place? That’s not true.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: There have been so many doubts about this being in Liberia, some of the people are confused about how it spreads, has the government been able to contact everyone in came in touch with since you were quarantined?
DR. BLAMA: Yes, everybody that came in contact with me directly and indirectly to the point that even the security that I don’t even see, like the security that worked here at night, when I get up, I don’t see them. Normally, I don’t go out. I don’t have a nightlife. I don’t go clubbing, I don’t have any eating spot, no drinking spot. From work home, home-work. That’s how I program my life for many years now…
The health workers came to me, they asked me who all I have been in contact with, I went back in memory and I came up with the list. In three days, who will tell me I cannot remember who all I met in three days, it’s not possible.
Saturday, when I started feeling funny, I isolated myself. I said I was observing myself. On Sunday, I reached out to Dr. Brown and when he said they had testing capabilities, it made me even more confident.
My administrative assistant came here I was upstairs I told him no, I’m observing myself, so I don’t want you around here. I did tell him that. I could have played dumb and let him come around, but I told him straight I could not keep him around.
“I never got to a crisis where it came to a point where they had to put a ventilator on me or oxygen. I didn’t get to that point. I ate regularly, I drank a lot of fluid, a lot of water, a lot of juices. I had a lot of eating and drinking. It’s not like any point in time I lost appetite, lost smell or taste, it didn’t get to that point. I don’t know why I don’t know-how. My case is different. But I can tell anybody that even now while I’ve recovered there are some strange things that I never used to notice is coming back. For example, sometimes when I talk, I get choked by my spit – something that has never happened to me before. And so, it’s real.
– Dr. Nathaniel Blama, Head, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Liberia’s recovered Index COVID-19 Patient
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: Because you’re the first case, there were a lot of rushed decisions, perceptions do you think the government treated you fairly when they suspended you?
DR. BLAMA: To be honest with you, everything was in my anticipation. This is the first case; everybody was running helter-skelter. People had their own interpretation. I think in the wisdom of the President, to get me out of play and maintain stability, I think it was a wise decision so it’s something I accepted in good faith. I don’t think he did it out of bad faith. He did it out of good faith to calm things down because the misinformation was just too much…
You talk to certain people and they go and distort the information, so I knew that something was going to be even worse than that so, I just positioned my mind, made myself stable and this is where we are.
This is the society we live in. In that time, given the situation, everybody was out of play, I didn’t feel any indifference, I think the President acted wisely to put me out of play. If it was you in that position, it would be a hot seat, it would be a hot decision because if people coming to you and making you feel that one of your senior officials has disrespected a mandate that you gave, you’ll feel disrespected, too. So, I’m not particularly angry. I think the President acted wisely.
Over time the truth was revealed, I was exonerated so I don’t feel bad. I always say this to my staff and to my friends, I don’t feel bad when people misrepresent me.
What I feel bad about is when someone says something about me and it’s true, I don’t get mad at the person, I get mad at myself. How did I get to this point, why did I do this?
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: Because you’re the first case, your name was announced and it’s also because you’re a government official but since then there have been lots of debate on whether the names of victims should be announced, what’s your view on that?
DR. BLAMA: For me, I think it was good that my name was mentioned and that’s part of the full disclosure and being upfront. I didn’t feel indifferent, I didn’t feel bad because my name was announced because I had prepared myself for this. Those are some of the things I thought of before I called for the test.
I thought of it that if this thing came positive what could potentially happen. I drew all of the odds in my mind, what goes could wrong, what be better…
Even when Dr. Kateh called me that morning, it was already being discussed in quarters, on the radio so I thought to reach out to my senior staff, besides my family here, my next family is those that I work with. So, after I spoke to my wife and I informed her about it, obviously her reaction was different, the next group I reached out to was my senior staff. The text that you saw, I posted it in our senior staff chatroom. One of the staff took it from there, sent it to someone, someone sent it social media and it went viral.
At that point, obviously, by the time my name was called, in reality, my name was already out there. Even before the President made the pronouncement, it was already on Truth Breakfast show as breaking news so making it formal and official, I don’t think it was wrong. It helped me actually.
I think it helped me because of the kind of overwhelming love that I received after the pronouncement, I think that’s what got me alive. There were pastors from all over the place that just called to offer prayers. It gave me the strength to live on every day. There was not a day in that treatment center that I felt abandoned or forgotten. I got overwhelmed that sometime when I had to take a nap, I had to turn my phone off.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: What’s next for Dr. Blama?
Blama: Well, I’m here. I’m waiting for my boss’ call and I commit myself to work with the health team, I have been giving some support as much as I can and I’m willing to do more of these, educate people to know that this thing is real and so we cannot just say this thing is not real. So, I’ve been more involved with awareness and putting out the right information and set the pace.
One thing that I know that it’s lacking, and the media has a role to play is the community support. Because of the way the information went, people who become positive are ostracized, they are humiliated, they are pushed aside. We need consistent community support, support that person and their family if they are found positive. It can encourage other people to come forward and get treatment and so we need more of that kind of message so that we don’t endanger the safety of the other people who potentially may not be contaminated.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: there’s been a lot of mixed messages from international bodies about this virus, some reports say once you get it, you can’t get it again and some people saying once you get it is possible you can get it again, do you have any fear that you may be re-infected at some point?
BLAMA: I’m not hoping for it, I’m not hoping to get re-infected but whether I’ll not get it again or I’ll get it again I make sure I maintain the whole social distancing, observe it and all of those that come around me I ensure that they abide by the social distancing.
I don’t want to try – that’s not something I want to go back in. So, as much as possible, I’ll try to avoid getting re-infected. If it’s not possible, it’s also better for me. But anything that I can do to avoid getting re-infested, that’s what I will do.
One scientific proof has shown that it’s like other flu viruses, once you catch it in the flu season, you don’t get re-infested with it. Others say those that it resurfaces with is because they may not have completed the full treatment and the virus went dormant in the system it didn’t get out completely.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: Do you have any final thoughts about this whole ordeal?
BLAMA: I feel mixed reactions, mixed feelings. First of all, me being the first tested COVID-19 case in Liberia put a lot of pressure on me and coming of it and surviving it even makes my issue even worse and getting back into the community, there have been mixed reactions. There are some people who opened up, there are some people who close up. My thinking is to try to reach out as much as possible. I don’t hold anything against anybody. People were confused and they said things and did things. I don’t personally hold anything against anybody.
But it also demonstrates who your true friends are. There were some things in me that I never knew, it really revealed the true me. I never knew I had so much resilience in me. People will call me on the phone crying, and I had to be strong for myself and strong for them because people think this thing was a death sentence and I had to assure them that I’m coming out of this.
It has thought me a lot of lessons, it has been a time of sober reflection. I see things in a more positive way even as dire as a situation may be, you can get something positive from out of it and that’s one thing this has taught me. I walk out of this with a more positive mind and a very good spirit. I feel no vengeance, no hurt, no bitterness.
FRONTPAGEAFRICA: What do you tell someone who is going through the same feeling that you went through?
BLAMA: I have sent many persons to go do their tests. Go to the testing center and do your test. It’s safer for you to do your test early and go into early treatment. All of us walk around here we don’t know what health condition we have. Normally in Liberia, people don’t go to the hospital until they are sick and sometimes by the time you get sick you’ve already developed liver problems, developed kidney problems, developed heart problems, so you don’t even know what’s happening to you. So, the early you do your testing and if it’s confirmed you can start early treatment. Or if you test and it’s negative, then you can relieve yourself of that stress.