Hello everyone. My name is Michael Custodio and I am a medical practitioner and clinical epidemiologist. Today I will be with you and for those with any questions or areas to discuss you are free to do so.

I am going to take you through my journey to where I am now.
I grew up in Chinhoyi and was at Chinhoyi high school up to form 4 and Kutama college for my A levels.

Sorry for the break. Medical school is tough. You have to be ready to read a lot of content. The exams sometimes are not friendly. Sometimes there is no social life depending on the courses one will be taking that time. But overall its rewarding.

After medical school there is a period we call internship. This is a time to learn a lot of skills in different specialities. Normally its 2 years. You will rotate in different specialities like obs and gyn, medicine, surgery etc.

Sometimes you have done science subjects and you do not make the grade. You can do other programs like nursing, laboratory sciences, pharmacy etc and using your degree apply for medicine. But make sure your grades are good.

Well after my internship I worked for almost 2 years in Zimbabwe before i left for Lesotho. I have been here then since 2012.

Medicine is good because after your undergraduate, there are a lot of areas you can choose from to specialise. I wouldn't want to mention because they are too many. I chose Epidermiology and did my Master at Stellenbosch university in South Africa.

I have worked as a clinician for some time but for the past 4 years or so I have been doing capacity building in TB and HIV/AIDS. Well when the pandemic started I thought i should contribute something too and i am also now consulting and managing COVIV 19 patients.

I understand most people would want to know what exactly do we mean when we say we are overwhelmed. I am going to share with you in a short moment and how Covid 19 have also affected me. Let me take a break and those with questions you are free to ask.

The better part of the day am going to talk more about Covid 19.

So how is it like to work in a covid 19 unit.
Everytime you leave the house, you always pray that the time you go back home you will not have been infected.

At the hospital a lot of patients are coming, some gasping for air with covid 19 symptoms. Most are in need of admission but the bed capacity is full. Its depressing sometimes as you tell other to look for other facilities for help.

For those who are lucky to be admitted, sometime you run out of oxygen and you are not sure who is supposed to get it or not.

During the day some lose their lives and as a team no one want to be the one to break the news. It's one of the most depressing moments as a medical practitioner to break bad news.

Some days some of your colleagues are missing on their shifts and you hear they have tested positive. Sometimes there are no replacements. Sometimes you decide to do shift work but still that will only contribute to skeleton staff facing an avalanche of cases.

Some patients are not ready to receive their results. Some deteriorate as they get to know that they have been diagnosed Covid 19.
Some families are losing breadwinners.

My partner is a healthcare worker and unfortunately a few weeks ago she was diagnosed Covid 19. As she recovers she is ready again to go back to work.

Where we stay, our child us not welcome to play with other kids because the parents are saying that's a covid 19 family because we are healthcare workers.

Those are some of the issues that I have to go through each and every day during this pandemic. So I would say it's important to prevent covid 19 in every way and it's a responsibility of all of us. Let me go now into details of Covid 19 and questions are still welcome.

Let me move on to a few issues about Covid 19 which are basic and life saving. There are some presentations about vaccines from colleagues in the coming days too.

There are some people who are at risk of developing severe Covid 19 disease leading to death. This group is mainly the elderly above 65 years of age, people who are diabetic, hypertensive and those with cancer.

Others may be infected with Covid 19 but may show mild symptoms or be asymptomatic. Some may ask why bother with preventive measures if I am not at risk of severe Covid 19 symptoms.

Once you are infected with Covid 19, you may spread it to others including to those who are at risk of severe symptoms. It can be your parents, grand parents or friends and relatives who are at a higher risk of death.

You are not only protecting yourself but others around you.

Covid 19 is a droplet infection and is spread through coughing, sneezing etc and also contaminated surfaces.

The best way of prevention is through using sanitisers to clean your hands as often as possible, social distancing and wearing a mask. You may ask how does a mask protect against this disease.

For those with Covid 19, wearing a mask will make sure that you are not going to expose others around you when you talk, cough, sneeze etc. That's the main rational of wearing a mask.

Of note is that let's also not forget about TB in the mix. A cough of more than 2 weeks in HIV negative person means you also need to be tested for TB through submitting sputum for analysis.

It's also possible for Covid 19 disease to co exist with other respiratory infections. This also include bacterial infections like pneumonia, asthma and COPD.

If you are a covid 19 contact and asymptomatic it is mandated for you to quarantine and if you are tested positive to isolate.

Some may ask if those who are HIV positive are at an increased risk of severe signs/symptoms of Covid 19. So far those who are consistently on their HAART medication and virologically suppressed have not been shown to be a risk.

Some people may wonder, HIV have killed a lot of people more than Covid 19, I can name more diseases, so what's the fuss about Covid 19. The answer is that Covid 19 spreads at a faster rate and can easily overwhelm our health systems.

That's way we will tend to concentrate on Covid and ignore other conditions. We may also see an increase in mortality rates in other conditions because of that.

Some may ask why lockdown when there is no cure. Again lockdown temporarily reduce rate of spread(flattening) the curve and becomes manageable in our health centres whilst we look for other ways of controlling the disease.

To conclude, medicine is a beautiful and fulfilling proffesion. It also needs hard work, commitment and dedication. And not to forget to focus on science subjects at school and medical sciences at university level. It is also very broad with a lot of areas of specialities.

Let me stop here for today. Questions are welcome too. Other colleagues will take it from here.

My parting advice is its wise not to listen a lot to WhatsApp and Facebook information which is not verified. Let's also not be in habit of self medicating with google. It may be wise to consult your doctor for help and construct individualised treatment plans together.

Bye and thanks for your engagements and interest