In the summer of 2020, Kazakh photographer Andrey Khludeyev contracted Covid-19. He smuggled in a small film camera to capture life on the pandemic's front lines.

As the world reacted to the spread of Covid-19 in early 2020, the vast Central Asian country of Kazakhstan appeared untouched.

Despite bordering China, the source of the global pandemic to come, no cases had been reported. Then, on 13 March 2020, that changed. Two Kazakh citizens who had returned from a trip to Germany tested positive for the disease – the first cases confirmed in this country of more than 20 million people. On 15 March, the country's president, Kassym-Jomary Tokayev, declared a state of emergency that was expected to last a month. Covid-19 would go on to kill more than 13,000 people in the country before officials declared the pandemic was under control.

Even then, Kazakh photographer Andrey Khludeyev says he was not particularly worried. "I first heard about Covid from taxi driver. I thought it was a joke, or 'fake news'. Time soon showed how wrong I was. When it was officially announced I had a flash in my mind: I'd go there [to a hospital] and make reportage. 'No Andrey, you're not allowed, you're not even an accredited photographer, no chance,' I said to myself. Well, I was wrong for a second time.

"The quarantine started in summer 2020 and I was lucky at first. Then in a month or so, I had the first symptoms. It was like a cold or flu: high temperature, about 38-39C [100-102F], coughs and so on," he says. His symptoms persisted, so he went to a medical clinic for tests and X-rays.

The X-ray results were concerning. "It showed a double-sided multi-area pneumonia at the first stage." The seriousness of his condition surprised him, as he felt no worse than if he had a cold or a minor case of flu. "And right at that time I had a call, and I was told that a friend of mine, a photographer, just passed away from Covid complications. He also was just fine for about a week before."

The doctors in the clinic did not tell Khludeyev to go to hospital, but he was worried enough to call a friend who had a medical background, and sent her the pictures of his X-rays. "She called me back right in a minute and said that she had called her doctors, and they told her that I should get a taxi and go to hospital right now, as I would not make it at home. So, I basically had no option." He arrived home and told his wife, who had been caring for him at home while he had been ill, and he quickly packed........

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