The medical school professors no longer want Kadiatou Fanta in the classroom. His Girlfriend has broken up with him. Each day the 26-year-old eats alone and sleeps alone. Even his own family members are afraid to touch his hand after he survived Ebola.
Long gone are the days when he was vomiting blood and wracked by fever. And even with a certificate of health declaring him as having recovered, he says it's still as though "Ebola survivor" is burned on his flesh.
"Ebola has ruined my life even though I am cured," he says. "No one wants to spend a minute in my company for fear of being contaminated."
The Ebola virus is only transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids of the sick, such as blood, saliva, urine, sweat or semen. When the first cases emerged in Guinea back in March, no one had ever confronted such a virulent and gruesome disease in this corner of Africa.
The current outbreak now has killed more than 1,000 people, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization. The fatality rate in previous Ebola outbreaks has been up to 90 percent, though health officials say this time up to half of victims are surviving.
While there is no specific treatment for Ebola, patients can be given supportive care such as intravenous fluids to keep them hydrated. If they can live long enough to develop antibodies to the virus they can survive, though they could still contract other strains of Ebola in the future, medical experts say.
Health workers hope that seeing living proof that people can survive Ebola will encourage fearful communities to get medical care instead of hiding the sick at home where they can infect relatives.
In Sierra Leone, Sulaiman Kemokai, 20, was released from an Ebola treatment center on Sunday after spending 25 days there. He still feels stiffness in his joints but says he is gaining strength each day.
"When I became sick, I was scared to go to hospital, I hid from my family, from health workers. After four days I couldn't hide anymore, I was too sick. An Ebola ambulance collected me and took me to the hospital," he recalls.
But some within his community are reluctant to have any physical contact with Kemokai. Those released from treatment centers are no longer contagious, though Ebola can still be present in men's semen for up to seven weeks.
Kemokai will have more family support than most: His older brother and sister also have survived Ebola, while the disease took their mother's life.
Fanta, the Guinean medical student, says he was working as an intern at a clinic in Conakry, the capital, when a patient came in from the provinces sick with what doctors initially thought was malaria. he took the man's vital signs — but as is common in Guinea — he had no protective gloves or face mask.
About two weeks later, in mid-March, she started having diarrhea and soon was vomiting blood. he says his lasting troubles began when doctors declared her cured and discharged her from the isolation ward at the hospital in early April.
Although he no longer had the virus in his bloodstream, he still was visibly unwell after nearly three weeks in the hospital. Word of her sickness and return spread quickly in the poor suburb of Tanene where he was staying with extended family.
The Girlfriend he used to see every day disappeared when he heard she had Ebola. Now she won't take my calls, even months later.
he tried to re-enroll with her medical school courses at Gamal Abdel Nasser University. In a sign of just how entrenched misconceptions are of Ebola, though, even the instructors did not want him in the classrooms, even though she handed them her certificate of health.
"I still haven't taken my exams while my classmates have moved on to the next level," she laments. "The professors said they were going to grade me by telephone."
Now he his living off what money his parents can scrape together to send him from their village, and still dreaming of when he can resume his courses.
"I want to take care of patients," he says. "The reason I am alive today and speaking to you now is because doctors saved me."
"I still haven't taken my exams while my classmates have moved on to the next level," she laments. "The professors said they were going to grade me by telephone."
Now he his living off what money his parents can scrape together to send him from their village, and still dreaming of when he can resume his courses.
"I want to take care of patients," he says. "The reason I am alive today and speaking to you now is because doctors saved me."
