Babatunde’s Fight for Breath: How a 17-Year-Old’s Life Was Put on Hold Before It Began

At 17, Babatunde Shola should have been chasing his dreams, laughing with friends at school, and planning for the future. Instead, his life came to a sudden standstill, even before his youth had truly begun. Hailing from Badagry, Lagos State, and living in Warri, Delta State, with his mother, Babatunde was a bright, hopeful student. But sometime in 2024, his health started to change in ways he couldn’t understand. Breathing became harder. His limbs grew weak until he couldn’t walk on his own. He lost weight quickly, and even the simplest tasks, bathing and moving from one room to another, became impossible without help.

The possibility of not writing his SSCE with his classmates grew fear in him. School, once a place of joy, had to be abandoned. Babatunde was forced to watch life pass him by, feeling like a burden to his loved ones. “That feeling was frustrating,” he recalls.

His family tried everything. He was taken to different pharmaceutical stores, where he was given drugs to ease his pain, but nothing worked. Traditional remedies were tried too, in the hope of a breakthrough. Instead, his condition worsened.

By July 23, 2024, things had reached a breaking point. Babatunde could no longer walk at all. His family rushed him to the emergency unit of Central Hospital in Warri. There, he was admitted and placed under a series of medical tests. Due to his inability to produce sputum, a stool sample was processed using the GeneXpert cartridge-based system, which confirmed a diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB).