Nightmare of snail farmer battling stigma over virus

After experiencing symptoms similar to those exhibited by Covid-19 patients, Wangui Waweru, 36, sought help from Nakuru County health officials.

That was on March 12, and Wangui, a snail farmer in Nakuru town’s Lanet estate, had just returned from a week-long workshop in Nairobi to share her farming experience with aspiring snail farmers.

For nearly two years, Wangui had been farming snails, mainly targeting the Asian export market.

At the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital, Wangui was treated and discharged. Medics at the facility did not find Covid-19, but they advised her to proceed on self-quarantine for 14 days.

By then, rumours that the mother of three had Covid-19 had already begun to spread in the neighbourhood.

The quarantine period ended on March 26, but Wangui’s condition did not improve, and the rumour mills about her status hit fever pitch.

On the same day, Wangui was picked up by an ambulance from her home back to Rift Valley PGH for further tests.

Isolation ward

At the hospital, Wangui was put in an isolation ward, further feeding the rumours about her status. But samples extracted from her on March 27 turned out negative on March 28.

The mother of three was again given a clean bill of health and discharged from the facility. Then her nightmare began.

By the time she arrived back home, word had spread in her neighbourhood and beyond that she had the disease. No amount of explaining and persuading would convince her friends and relatives that she was as healthy as any one of them.

Suddenly, Wangui found doors that gladly welcomed her less than two months ago slamming on her face.

No one wanted to associate with her. She could not even fetch water comfortably from a tap outside her rental house because neighbours would accuse her of planning to spread the virus.

“Shortly after returning home from the hospital, a neighbour loudly warned her daughter against fetching water from the tap after spotting me,” she recounts.

At some point, a local administrator knocked at Wangui’s door, demanding to see a copy of her medical records to ascertain she had tested negative for Covid-19.

“The chief said everyone was afraid of me and that they still suspected I had Covid-19. He even photocopied my medical records,” she says.

The burden of stigma and discrimination is slowly taking a toll on an erstwhile easy going and social farmer. Today she spends most of her time behind closed doors, terrified of the whispers behind her back.

Narrating her ordeal to The Standard, Wangui says the most hurting part of the stigma was losing her snail farm business, which suddenly started going south following the rumours.

The climax came when unknown people stormed her farm, claiming that the molluscs, too, were carrying Covid-19.

“They killed all the snails saying they were the source of my sickness. When I think about how hard I worked to set up the business, I cry all day and night. Killing my snails was cruel,” she said.

As anxiety grows over rising numbers of Covid-19 cases in Kenya, Wangui might not be alone in facing the nightmarish stigma that is rapidly gathering around the disease.

According to consultant psychiatrist Lukoye Atwoli, the stigma facing Covid-19 patients, suspected cases and contact persons is a result of lack of correct and enough information about the disease at the grassroots.

This, he says, might be causing more harm to Kenya’s mental health than the virus itself.

“The main challenge in managing the disease is lack of knowledge, prejudicial attitude, and discrimination,” says Prof Atwoli.

“We are handling coronavirus as if once you get it you are dead, and that once associated with it you’re a danger to everyone around you. This is what continues to cause stigma,” he said.

The mental health expert told The Standard in an interview that myths surrounding Covid-19 should be urgently torn down. The message, he says, should be clear and simple: Coronavirus is real; to protect yourself clean hands with soap and water, avoid crowding, keep social distance and stay at home.

But maybe not all messages are that simple; otherwise Wangui would not be terrified of venturing out of her house or being shunned by relatives and friends who, despite all medical evidence, still believe she has Covid-19.