KABUL (Pajhwok): Covid-19 disease survivors urge uninfected people to take the disease serious and get vaccinated besides following health guidelines. They say they contacted the virus for not following health guidelines such taking social distance, avoiding mask, participation in gatherings and not washing their hands.
Covid-19 recovered people: We almost died due to negligence: NajibullahMobarez, 45, a resident of KhairKhana area of Kabul city, who recently recovered from Covid-19, told Pajhwok Afghan News, “I considered Covid-19 a simple flu and was careless about it, but when I got infected, I had no hope to recover.” “I took oxygen for a whole week, I was totally unconscious. When I recovered I felt like I was born again, I thank God for giving me life again,” he said. He said that despite recovering from Covid-19 he still felt weakness, tiredness and mental stress. Mubarez asked people to take Covid-19 serious and follow all preventive guidelines.
Meanwhile, Zarmina, a resident of Qala Zaman Khan area of Kabul, said, “A year ago exactly this time when Covid-19 was at its peak, I was not following any health tips and was commuting anywhere, I did not believe in the disease and was even telling others not to fear it.” She said that besides her, all her family members including her husband, daughter and a son were infected due to their carelessness about the disease.
She termed the disease a bitter memory of her life and said, “I was experiencing death in my two-week illness, I was thinking that I would not recover with my other family members, because we all were in bad condition.” Zarmina said that people should not be careless about the disease and she and her family would like to take the vaccine.
Sharifullah, a resident of Kandahar province, said, “I isolated myself for two weeks in a room, I was very depressed and a day was like a year for me.” He said despite several months after his recovery from the disease, he was still mentally not stable. He said that the government should facilitate the vaccination service for all people. Niamatullah, a resident of Zaranj city, also told his story of going through a bad situation during his Covid-19 disease and said that he still felt the effects of the disease despite the passage of a long time.
Coronavirus is dangerous, take it serious: Dr. Zabihullah Afghanmal, a health specialist in Kandahar, identified fever, headache, cough, shortness of breath and heartburn as symptoms of Covid-9, and told Pajhwok the disease was very dangerous and must be taken seriously. He added Covid-19 patients were unable to perform complex mental tasks such as thinking and reasoning during the disease and after recovery from it.
He advised patients having these symptoms after recovery to lead a normal social life and enjoy it and continue to improve their diet gradually to get rid of the memory problem. Afghanmal called the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine necessary for everyone, even those who had recovered from the disease. He urged citizens to get vaccinated.
Hakimullah Saleh, former director of the Afghan-Japan Hospital, told Pajhwok that there were no symptoms in some of patients, but there were a number of relatively mild symptoms that led some to hospitalisation. He explained the symptoms included long-term fatigue, shortness of breath, cough, chest pain, body aches, headaches and loss of taste and smell. These symptoms remain in some people even after recovery from the pandemic.
Saleh also said those who had psychological faced issues as anxiety, memory problem, lack of concentration, difficulty sleeping, hair loss and skin vapors. Asked how long these symptoms remained in patients, Saleh replied an exact timeframe was hard to give. But post-recovery symptoms were not worrisome, he said.
The specialist urged citizens to follow the MoPH to recommendations to check the spread of the disease and protect their families and others around them from the deadly virus. He encouraged people to get the Covid-19 vaccine and asked citizens to vaccinate themselves and their family members to prevent the disease from spreading further in the community.
Covid-19 vaccination continues: Ghulam Dastagir, spokesman for MoPH, called on people to receive the coronavirus vaccine to control the disease, in addition to following health recommendations. He said in order to prevent the spread of the disease, the vaccination campaign was underway in at government health centers in the country.
MoPH recently announced detecting seven cases of the UK variant of the coronavirus in the country. The ministry asked citizens to get vaccinated and follow health guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus. The coronavirus vaccination programme began in Afghanistan on February 23. Figures from MoPH show more than 132,000 tonnes of vaccines have been received since the spread of the virus.
The country has about one million doses of the vaccine “This Investigative Report was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Pajhwok and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.”
