KOZHIKODE: For M Ajanya, 21, from Cheliya here, May 18, 2018, is a horrifying memory. It was then that she first began to show symptoms of Nipah virus and the test confirmed that she was positive. Now, three years on, when Ajanya got to know about the latest outbreak of the virus, it took her back to the days when she had been admitted to the ICU of Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital.
Ajanya had been doing her nursing internship at Beach General Hospital here when she was deployed on short- term duty at Kozhikode MCH. It was from there that she contracted Nipah. Now, after finishing her nursing course, she is working at the same Beach General hospital which had been the setting for a major turning point in her life.
“I have mixed emotions now. On the one hand, I am happy that our health department is tackling the situation well. But on the other, I feel bad for the family of the 12-year-old boy as we could not save his life despite having successfully dealt with Nipah outbreak in the past. But we cannot blame anyone, as these very unpredictable conditions,” she said.
Ajanya was the first person to survive Nipah while 18 others died in the state. Recalling the days she had spent in the isolation ward, Ajanya said, “I was informed of my condition only on the eve of the discharge from hospital. I was worried when my parents were not allowed to see me, but the hospital authorities made sure that I felt better. I was told by the nursing staff at MCH that nurse Lini Puthussery, who died of Nipah later, was in the same ward where I had been admitted to. Spending those days in isolation was a nightmare that can give me a panic attack even now,” she said.
She graduated from Government Nursing College in Kozhikode with a graduate degree in GNM (general nursing and midwifery) and is busy assisting doctors in the treatment of the Covid patients. The daughter of a farm labourer and an anganwadi worker, Ajanya hopes things soon will be back to normal here.