The
Pandemic
In December last year, we had been hearing of a new virus called Covid 19, that had been causing a flu like illness in China with many deaths. In February we started of hearing of cases in the United States. In March I saw my first patient.
Being an Infectious Disease doctor with an Epidemiology background, people started asking me questions on how to treat this. Unfortunately, this being a completely new virus, I did not have much advice. I did try to follow the studies out of China and Europe judiciously.
One study out of France suggested using an antimalarial drug called chloroquine. I was very familiar with chloroquine having used it both personally and on patients in West Africa. It was not clear why this would be effective. This drug does have an immunological effect and one reason for death in these patients is an immune phenomenon called adult respiratory distress syndrome. Perhaps chloroquine was able to control this?
We started using this on our patients along with other supportive care. The first patient did very well, and recovered completely. The second patient developed complications and despite heroic efforts by our in-patient team, he died.
At this time, my hospital got a call from a national medical TV show. The patient who had recovered had been giving interviews of how he got better on chloroquine. They were interested in talking to me especially if I had used chloroquine before. My hospital arranged an online interview.
In the interview I told them that I did not know if chloroquine helped or not as one patient had recovered and one had died. They must have been unhappy with my answer, as the interview never aired. Subsequent studies appear to show no benefit from chloroquine and I stopped using it.
The epidemic continued relentlessly. We had a few more patients die and several recover. I was instructed to start consulting on patients via telehealth to limit the number of people in the hospital as well as to protect me. The virus is unpredictable with some elderly patients with multiple problems doing well, and some younger and healthier patients not doing so well.
One scene will always live with me. Earlier in the epidemic, I had come to the ICU to see a critically ill Covid patient with multiple medical problems. The family had however decided to make him comfortable and the ventilator had been removed. He was dying all alone.
It was at that time that three of the nurses put on their personal protective equipment and went into the room with him. They stood around him, one of them holding his hands until he passed. The sight of those nurses standing quietly by this patient so that he would not die alone touched me deeply.
I do not know how this epidemic will end, but one thing I do know for sure is that it will not rob us of our humanity.
Me in Personal Protective equipment in March 2020
