Overcoming COVID-19 at 99 years-old in Guinea

Womenscorner Desk
September 29, 2020

When Bagama Guehara walked out of Donka Hospital in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, on 7 July this year, leaning on a walking stick for support, she was met with a rapturous applause from the medical staff and fellow patients. At 99, Guehara is that the oldest person to possess tested positive for COVID-19 in Guinea since the country’s first positive case was detected on 13 March. Guinea has since recorded 10 344 infections and 65 deaths. the very best case deathrate has been in patients over 60 years old, which made Guehara’s recovery all the more significant.

“My family were very worried due to my age,” she says. “They didn’t think i might be ready to survive. But I overcame my fears and kept my hopes up because the doctors took excellent care of me and reassured me.”

Guehara’s symptoms had started with a dry cough. Though she had initially thought little of it, she had taken the precaution of calling her daughter, who may be a doctor, and who immediately sent a medical team to require her mother to hospital. Guehara tested positive for COVID-19 on the 18 June.

She was placed on a ventilator for her first several days within the hospital, increasing the amount of oxygen in her blood from a worrying 75% back to a healthy 90%. From then on, she was closely monitored by the hospital’s medical team for nearly three weeks, until her follow-up test came back negative and she or he was told she could leave the facility and return home.

“Everyone thinks it's a miracle,” Guehara says. “In the hospital, when other patients saw me walking out of the ward, it gave them hope that they might also recover.” In the weeks since Guehara was discharged, Guinea has rapidly scaled up testing, completing around 1000 tests per day since 20 July. The country has also reopened commercial aviation during a bid to assist resuscitate its economy.

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But Guehara cautions that her fellow citizens must not become complacent and will still follow basic public health measures like good hand hygiene and
social distancing. “COVID-19 is extremely real,” she says. “It can affect anyone. Everyone has got to play their part.”