Saint defeats Covid19

Corona Virus Disease 2019, better known as Covid19 is a pandemic that started in Wuhan, China and spread to the rest of the world. It has been contracted by 2 million and has claimed about 300,000 lives worldwid. In Uganda alone, we have had 126 infections and 55 recoveries at the time of this publication. We are still lucky that we haven’t recorded any deaths to this day. All people are urged to continue observing Social Distancing, regular washing of hands with soap and water and other measures put in place by the Ministry of Health.

That said, Covid19 didn’t give special treatment to our own household. It didn’t even mind which Saint to visit, but a medical doctor who was at the forefront of saving lives from the pandemic.

Dr. Phionah Atuhebwe, a Class of 94 saint currently works with the United Nations’ World Health Organization as the New Vaccines Director in Africa and is based in Congo, Brazzaville. In April 2020, she got into contact with a victim and was informed by email on Easter Sunday to have a test done on Tuesday 14th April 2020. She was later informed that 4 of the 44 contacts tested had turned out positive for Covid19 and she was unfortunately one of them.

For those who don’t know yet, our patron saint, St. Aloysius (Luigi) Gonzaga succumbed to a pandemic at a tender age of 23 (six years short of his ordination as a Jesuit priest) as he was nursing plague victims in Rome where he had offered himself for the service of the sick.

Dr. Phionah, in an almost similar fashion, was on the frontline fighting Covid19 and contracted the virus in the long run. Unlike St. Aloysius though, Dr. Phionah was able to defeat the pandemic and fully recovered at a hospital in Berlin.