Groups at risk
Everywhere, medical doctors are talking about the special care that needs to be given to persons with preconditions, to high risk patients. Many of our kantharis are globally working with exactly such target groups. For example, Henry, a 2017 kanthari graduate. Henry founded Kick-start-Kilifi, an alternative learning centre for the many school dropouts in his region, who could not or cannot continue their education due to poverty.
The Region Kilifi is, according to Henry, one of the poorest in Kenya. And where there is poverty, usually certain diseases can be found. Especially widespread is Tuberculosis, a deadly disease but one that luckily can be cured with the right treatment.
“But”, so Henry, “Poverty doesn’t sell!”. Because Tuberculosis is a lung disease, it makes a person, whether young or old, in times of Corona, automatically a hi-risk patient.
Henry himself is infected by TB and thus afraid that his already weakened immune system cannot fight the virus adequately. Henry belongs to a small group of educated people in his area who can afford a medical treatment and he is well informed how important it is to take the TB medicine till the very end, even if it takes months to get healed.
But many others stop taking the TB treatment immediately when they feel a bit better. Then, however soon there is a relapse that more often than not, ends deadly. Amongst those who die are also many youngsters. The numbers of people who die of TB are staggering… In 2018 worldwide 1.5 million people died from TB. “Most people are not aware of this, or they don’t want to know, because we, the poor, have no lobby.”, says Henry and his voice sounds disturbed. “If the Corona Virus arrives in Kilifi, I am afraid that it will result in a high number of deadly victims , especially amongst TB patients.”
Unfortunately, in the meantime, the Virus has already arrived in Kilifi. A Politician just came from a business trip from Germany. At his return to Nairobi, he was requested to self-quarantine just in case. What the officials didn’t know, he was already positive. But instead of isolating himself, he celebrated his arrival, met his supporters, family, friends, shook hands. Henry is respected because despite poverty he managed to get educated and he is doing everything to fight poverty. Currently, he works as much as he can, on an information campaign to prevent Kilifi from becoming another next big Covid-19 Hotspot.
Knowing the situation in Kilifi, we can be grateful for the well-functioning health care system here in Kerala. We shall not forget that Kerala has seen one of the first Covid-19 cases in India. This is also due to the high level of education. In contrast to TB, which hits mainly the poor, those who are infected by Corona first, are the mostly the ones who are educated and those are financially sound to travel. Many study or work abroad. They bring income and education back to Kerala and now they also carried the virus as an ’unwanted extra’. Today, there was the first Corona death in Kerala. We cross fingers that the 21-day national lockdown will slow down the rate of infections and will flatten the curve significantly.