M'sian doctor, wife & 5 children reveal they have Covid-19 via TikTok video

TikTok videos as infectious as Covid-19.

Belmont Lay | March 29, 2020, 05:06 AM

A family of seven in Malaysia has tested positive for Covid-19 and they have let the world know about their infection via TikTok.

The seven family members are a doctor, his wife and five children.

Since Friday, March 27, a TikTok video by one of the doctor's children, 17-year-old Erika Syamim Samsu Ambia, has been trending on Twitter.

It showed the siblings quarantined at the Teluk Intan Hospital.

“Even though we’re Covid-19 positive, we as a family will go through this together. Plus, our health condition is okay. Here’s a TikTok (video) we made to entertain ourselves in hospital,” she wrote.

https://twitter.com/errikaaaaaaaa/status/1243534608169177088

Erika Syamim’s video on Twitter has been viewed 412,000 times.

Father caught virus first

Erika Syamim, the eldest among the five siblings, told Bernama that her father, Samsu Ambia Ismail, is a specialist and the head of the emergency and trauma department at Teluk Intan Hospital.

He has been isolated in hospital for the past six days after he was the first in the family to be infected.

Erika Syamim, her four siblings aged between eight and 15, and their mother were isolated a day later.

She said: “We are fighting the virus with our own antibodies and hope we’ll be fine after the 14-day quarantine.”

Twitter users responded with words of encouragement and prayers, after the teenager revealed the symptoms of the disease, in response to a query about it.

Her father had fever, cough and breathing difficulties, she said, while the rest of them just had a fever.

Erika Syamim also advised other patients, especially Muslims, to continue to pray and recite the Quran: “If you are in the ward, don’t be lemau (sluggish). Be cheerful, insyaallah (God willing) we can fight the disease too.”