It starts with a tickle. A dry little throat-clearing sound that seems innocent enough. Then, hours later, the tickle turns into a barking, hacking, chest-rattling orchestra that wakes the neighbours, frightens the pug and has your family wondering if you’re starting a new pandemic. Welcome, dear reader, to the season of the cough.
This year’s chorus seems louder than ever. Half the country is coughing—at home, in offices, in taxis, in line at the pharmacy. Everyone’s doing it: the doctors, the nurses, the patients, even the security guards at the gate. It’s as if we’re all part of an unintentional choir.
And of course, everyone has their theory.
“It’s the Sahara dust,” says one.
“It’s the air-condition in that bloody office,” says another.
“It’s just a lil’ viral ting,” insists the friend who always has medical degrees from WhatsApp University.
But then you lie down. And suddenly, it’s like your lungs turned into a leaky tap. You cough till your ribs hurt. You cough till you consider sleeping in a chair. You cough till you start hearing phantom advice from your grandmother: “Boil garlic with Vicks.”
I’ve seen coughs of every shape and sound. The dry tickle of a nervous talker. The wheezy gasp of an asthmatic. The gurgle of someone with fluid in their lungs—a sound that makes you sit up straight because you know it’s not just a “lil’ cold.” In the hospital, we’ve become trained to distinguish them by pitch: the barking cough, the brassy cough or the “wet” cough that sends every medical student running for a stethoscope.
And lately, the coughs are back with a vengeance. Post-viral, post-COVID, post-common sense. Because while the coughs are back, the tests are not. “No rapid tests available,” they tell you at the pharmacy. “You could swab if yuh want, but them kits expired since 2023.”
Someone decided COVID was over. Just like that. Vanished! Apparently, if you stop testing, the virus goes away—an epidemiological miracle that no textbook ever described. But the truth is, COVID left behind an even more fragile healthcare system.
I had a patient last week, coughing till she could barely talk.
“Doc, it cyah be COVID,” she said confidently.
I asked why.
“Because I doh have time for that right now.”
Well, there you have it. A virus defeated by scheduling conflicts.
Then there are the others—the ones who glare at you when you wear a mask in public, as if you’ve personally insulted their immune systems. “You still wearing dat?!” they ask, incredulous. I also wear seatbelts, use sunblock and wash my hands.
Every year brings a new generation of home cures. And my patients are happy to share them.
One swears by lime juice with garlic and a sprinkle of black pepper.
Another drinks coconut oil before bed “to lubricate the lungs.”
Someone told me they put Vicks on their feet, then wear socks.
Then there are the “old-time” cures that refuse to die: bayleaf tea, ginger and honey. Let’s not forget the one my patient swore by: “Doc, I gargled Puncheon rum and saltwater, and the cough gone!”
Yes, it was gone—mostly because her throat was numb for three hours.
Let’s talk about cough syrups—the sweet, sticky elixirs that promise relief but mostly deliver disappointment (and diabetes risk). Many of these over-the-counter potions contain enough sugar to sweeten your morning coffee for a week and enough alcohol to qualify as a mild cocktail. They lull you into thinking they’re helping because they soothe the throat for a few minutes, but in truth, most do little to actually stop a cough. In fact, for many viral coughs, time, hydration and rest are far better medicines.
Of course, doctors aren’t immune. Sometimes it’s just the irony of the season: the healer hacking, the counsellor coughing. You’ve never heard a more pitiful sound than a doctor with laryngitis trying to instruct a patient. It’s like mime medicine.
Because behind that cough is often a story: diabetes uncontrolled, hypertension untreated or a respiratory infection that went unchecked because the clinic had no medication that week.
Many of our patients are still gasping—literally—from the long-term effects. They have lungs scarred from infection, hearts weakened by inflammation and wallets emptied by private lab fees. And when they can’t access care, they cough at home until they collapse. Then we see them in emergency rooms with oxygen levels.
Now, I’m not here to preach doom. Coughs are annoying but often harmless. The body’s way of clearing airways—it’s built-in broom. Still, they can linger for weeks after infections, especially in our dusty, air-conditioned, perfume-heavy world.
Simple advice:
Drink warm fluids (not Puncheon).
Avoid smoke, dust.
Sleep with your head elevated if the cough worsens when lying down.
Try the lime and honey.
Don’t talk too much if your throat’s sore—your friends will thank you.
And if you’ve been coughing for more than three weeks, or your cough is accompanied by weight loss, fever, or night sweats—don’t assume it’s “just dust.” Get checked. We live in a region where tuberculosis still whispers in the background, and post-COVID complications are still very real.
So when someone next to you coughs like a two-stroke engine, don’t roll your eyes or mutter “COVID done.” Maybe offer a lozenge. Maybe suggest a test (if you can find one). Maybe just step back politely—distance still works better than denial.
So yes, curse the people who say COVID is over. Curse the complacency, the amnesia, the reckless coughers who walk into crowded rooms unmasked. Because every cough reminds me not just of a virus, but of a system that’s forgotten how to breathe.
