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How three friends deliberately exposed themselves to Covid-19

By Amina Wako August 4th, 2020 2 min read

A man who lives in Diani, Mombasa has revealed the shocking details of how he and two of his friends deliberately exposed themselves to Covid-19.

In a phone-in conversation with Spice FM on Tuesday morning, the gentleman who identified himself by the name William, said he and his friends exposed themselves to the virus to build their immunity.

“We felt that if you expose yourself to Covid you have better chances of improving the antibodies in your blood plasma to prevent yourself from getting re-infected or getting the worst form of it when you are infected,” the gentleman said.

“And we thought why don’t we expose ourselves to it, deal with it, improve our antibodies in our blood and be on the other side, where you have gone through it and dealt with it,” he narrated.

According to William, they first underwent a medical check to ensure they had no underlying conditions.

“I took my medical on July 7, 2020, and I was well,” he said.

William further revealed that they contracted the virus from a friend’s relative who had already tested positive and was under home care isolation.

“One of my friends, the relative was at home with Covid-19 and was going through the home therapy and we exposed ourselves to him,” he said.

The three friends tested positive at the same time 18 days ago.

“We had so many discussions before we took that step. We are 32 years, we are healthy and active in sports. We also wanted to take the responsibility to ensure that we are doing this safely so we put our resources together to ensure we self-isolate ourselves away from everyone else,” he said.

RISKY GAMBLE

But while reacting to the story, Dr Moses Masika, a virologist from the University of Nairobi, William and his friends are gambling with their lives

“I think William is a good gambler, the kind that will take the multi-bet because knowing what we know about the virus, it’s something I wouldn’t do although I am naturally very curious as a researcher,” Dr Masika said.

”However, I understand where he is coming from because we have heard that maybe when you are infected and you heal and survive, you won’t be infected again but we do not know that yet about Covid-19,” he said.