Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, today urged the public to adhere to COVID-19 measures disclosing that his second experience with the virus was so severe that he feared that he might not be able to have a normal life again.
Nadir first tested positive for COVID-19 last September and then again in December. When he previously tested positive, Nadir was asymptomatic but this time he exhibited symptoms.
“Mrs. Nadir started feeling unwell on Christmas Day. Then my eight-year-old grandson started complaining that his throat was hurting. On (the) Sunday night, I woke around 3 am hot with fever, had a headache… and the 16-year-old seemed worse,” Nadir told Stabroek News.
The House Speaker said that while he was not sure it was COVID-19, he took the decision that Parliament be held virtually on December 28th. The family decided that they would all be tested and of his five-member household, he said that the one person without any symptoms tested negative while all others tested positive.
Recounting his experience with the virus at today’s Parliament sitting, Nadir said that he had a fever, loss of taste, no appetite and a feeling of extreme weakness. He noted that after testing positive, medical personnel promptly provided him with vitamins and supplements in addition to some local herbs.
Regardless, he said, he continued to experience COVID-19 symptoms and kept getting weaker. On January 6th, he said that he could no longer bear the feeling of extreme weakness and called for an ambulance. He said that he was taken to the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal where he was treated intravenously.
“I spent a day there. I raise this to urge your families to adhere to COVID-19 protocols and treat urgently with the symptoms. I was really sick and I felt that I would never return to any semblance of near normal life,” he said. Nadir expressed gratitude to the Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony and the doctors in the Infectious Diseases Hospital for the care and attention that they gave him while in isolation.
Nadir’s case has raised the issues of whether reinfection is occurring and if the COVID-19 variants are playing a role in this.
