Stay indoors. Use a mask to cover your nose. Avoid contact with people who are coughing or showing signs of fever. Wash your hands with antiseptic soap or liquid hand wash.
Use disinfectants on frequently touched objects and surfaces like doorknobs, tables, chairs or your water tap handles.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. When you cough or sneeze, cover your mouth and nose with a tissue, and discard that tissue safely in a trash.
This is the daily routine and the life of Gambians in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei Province, since the outbreak of the coronavirus in December last year. There are 20 Gambians living in Wuhan, among them, undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students.
This new strain of an infectious respiratory disease identified by Chinese scientists as novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) had not been previously identified in humans, but human-to-human transmission has been confirmed, Gambia’s ministry of health said in a statement.
Completely isolated
While no Gambian citizen is reported to have been infected with the virus yet, there has been growing fears of risk of infection among the small student population in Wuhan. There are also concerns that Gambia’s diplomatic mission in Beijing may not know the exact conditions of Gambians in Wuhan.
“Since the outbreak, countries like Liberia have been constantly in touch with their citizens, it is only last week that I heard from the Gambian embassy in Beijing,” a graduate student, who asked not to be named, said.
On January 30, the Gambian embassy said all students in Wuhan were safe for now after it spoke to them by phone telling them “do let us know if anything happens to you”. The Chargé d’ Affaires, Fatou Kinneh Jobe, said the embassy is closely monitoring the situation and was in touch with the Gambian Students Union and a Gambian Association in Guangzhou.
“I don’t think it is right for the embassy to say everyone is fine based on contacts with the student union whose leadership is in Beijing,” the graduate student said by phone. “Our situation is that we have been ‘completely isolated’, everyone is in their rooms alone and one can even die there without anyone knowing.”
He said neither the embassy nor the student union knows exactly what Gambians in Wuhan are going through on a daily basis, and that some of them “do not know about the existence” of the student union.
A Spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Banjul, Saikou Ceesay, said he was not aware of the frequency of contacts between the Gambian embassy and the students but knows that the country’s diplomatic mission is in touch with Gambian students in Wuhan and other Gambians in China.
While some universities in Wuhan are reported to have provided masks, soaps, and hotlines to emergency services to foreign students, our source said he bought a mask and have not been given a toll-free phone number to reach ambulances.
“If I contract the virus, how am I going to get help? I do not speak Chinese, how can I contact an ambulance?” he asked. “I have only been checked once. I was out of my apartment and I saw health personnel disinfecting the area and they checked my temperature – that was a week ago.”
The student said it is important for the Gambian government to consider relocating its citizens to a “safer zone” like Beijing because the risk of infection in Wuhan is high.
“I and other students are at risk of contracting the virus because if your food runs out you have to go out to buy food, and it means you have to interact with other people,” our source, who is pursuing a masters’ degree in Wuhan, said.
“I am in an apartment [alone] outside the university where most foreign students are staying. I want all Gambians to remember us in their prayers – banks are closed and I don’t even know if I will get my next stipend.”
However, Ceesay said there are no plans to evacuate the students from the epicentre of the coronavirus for now. “The situation is we don’t have plans to evacuate them but we are working with our Chinese counterparts to provide them with all the necessary provisions they will need in a timely manner,” he said.
As of Wednesday, at least 490 people have died from the respiratory illness, and 24,324 are known to have been infected with the virus. Hong Kong recorded the second confirmed death from the coronavirus outside China after the Philippines.
The virus has since spread across continents with cases reported in more than 15 countries in America, Asia, and Europe. The World Health Organization said the outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern.
Wuhan has a population of 11 million people and hosts several of China’s universities. It has attracted a good number of foreign students whose governments share bilateral ties with the mainland.
The city has been in lockdown since the outbreak, with trains and other public transportations systems restricted in and out of Wuhan, except for flights of mainly evacuees of foreign nationals.
Not in jail
“Our stipend should be sent to the bank by the end of the month, I am not sure what will happen, whether it will be sent or not, but we have ATM cards,” Ebrima Barry, an undergraduate student of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the Central China Normal University in Wuhan, said.
“We are not in jail,” Barry said of the city’s lockdown from his university dorm in Wuhan. “But if I want to leave Wuhan there are no public transport services – but within Wuhan my movements are not restricted, but the advice is that we should stay indoors.”
His university has provided him with one thermometer for him to be checking his temperature regularly. They have also given him 20 masks and a bottle of antiseptic hand wash. However, no health personnel have been to his dorm or campus to examine his health.
“There is a hospital at my university, it is situated about one kilometer from my dorm, and the advice is that if anyone is not feeling well you can go to the hospital, and if you can’t get to the hospital you can call 120 for emergency services to come get you,” he said by phone.
Barry heard from the Gambian embassy in Beijing three times since the coronavirus outbreak, and he said this is reassuring.
“The Gambian embassy is in touch with me, they called me and said I have to let them know if anything happens,” he said. “It’s quite comforting; it shows that they care about my presence here.”
He also said he was aware of other countries evacuating their citizens out of Wuhan, but he wouldn’t want to call for an evacuation to The Gambia.
“If we are evacuated to Gambia and eventually someone take along the virus, do The Gambia have the doctors and health facilities to tackle the disease? And if China eventually found a vaccine would the government bring us back to China in time for us to get vaccinated and to continue our studies?” he said. “Let the authorities analyse the situation and do what is best for us.”
Barry said his family in The Gambia is “really worried” but he tells them that “I am fine” and that he will follow the advice of health authorities to ensure he does not contract the virus.
But without plans to evacuate him and other Gambians in Wuhan, the foreign affairs ministry said it is working to get provisions to various Gambian students’ residences.
“Support will be given to them where they are. We have already sorted that out with our Chinese counterparts,” its spokesman, Saikou Ceesay, said. “We are hopeful that the situation will be contained in the soonest possible time.”
Infected with pneumonia
In mid-December last year, some workers at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan were reportedly infected with “pneumonia” with no clear causes.
But Chinese scientists eventually linked the pneumonia to a new strain of coronavirus named novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
The first case of death from the virus was reported in Wuhan on January 10, and by January 22, the new coronavirus had spread to major cities and provinces in China.
Single cases were reported in several countries outside China towards the end of January, and Hong Kong and the Philippines are the first two countries to record death from the virus outside the mainland as of February 4.
