The Federal government on Monday said it was sending a high-powered delegation to Kano on Tuesday, as part of its efforts to unravel the mysterious deaths that have ravaged the state in the last one week.
This followed growing concerns over the death of over 600 persons, including highly rated personalities, professors, bankers, media practitioners and senior citizens in Kano state in the last one week.
Minister of State for Health, Olorunnimbe Mamora disclosed this at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 in Abuja on Monday.
This is coming on the backdrop of cry by governor Umar Ganduje, that the state had been neglected by the Federal government.
Minister of State for Health, Olorunnimbe Mamora disclosed this at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 in Abuja on Monday.
This is coming on the backdrop of cry by governor Umar Ganduje, that the state had been neglected by the Federal government.
The Federal Government’s delegation is to receive briefings from the State Government and health authorities on the rising death toll in the wake of Covid-19.
“The Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Health is deploying a high-powered, fact-finding delegation to work with the state to improve Covid-19 response as well as ask questions on the causes of these deaths reported.
‘We are also working very hard to investigate the cause of the deaths that have been reported in Kano, now mortality surveillance is not easy, so we are working to do autopsy retrospectively and prospectively together with the public health care team in Kano,” the minister said.
“That is a very diligent work that is going on at the moment and in a few weeks we will be able to produce the result,” he added.
Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), blamed the population density in Kano, for the deaths.
” So, Kano has always been very high on our raider so the high number of cases that we see in Kano is really not a surprise. We are very concerned about this and we are doing everything we can. Now despite our strong commitment to control the spread of the corona virus, there is no magic bullet,” he said.
“Our role remains to work very hard for everyone and the people of Kano and the people of every state in the country. What exactly are we doing? The first is to mention that Kano has been one of our states with which we have strong relationship,” he explained.
He announced that within the first 12 hours of the first confirmed case, ” we had already deployed members of the nation’s response team to support the state government effort.
“We now have a total of 15 cases; we will continue scaling the number of support for Kano State until we get to the appropriate number,” Ihekweazu said.
He said the centred had done everything possible to ensure the reactivation of the lab in the amino Kano teaching hospital and reduce the turnaround time for the testing of samples. He noted that sometime speed also has its consequences. The DG said the lab was contaminated and bio safety measures had to be strengthened.
“So in the interest of the healthcare workers in Kano especially in AKTH we had to pause and shot down the lab for a few days. So we have been working together with our colleagues to reactivate the lab.
“In the last 72hrs, we had to send another team from the reference lab of the NCDC. They have worked day and night to reactivate that lab, and I’m happy to announce that that lab will start working from this afternoon and start testing samples again as it should be.
“We will not stop until the lab is fully functional again; we are also working in a new lab in Bayaro University, Kano, so that we have two labs working in Kano, because we are very aware that the labs are the windows into the response,” he announced.
Ihekweazu said the centre remains focused on its target, which this week is to rapidly scale testing across the country “and I’m happy to announce that in addition to Kano, we are activating the high-throughput roscoe machine in our national reference lab that will enable us an extra capacity of about 1000 samples a day, if we can get the samples in, we are working to get the samples from across the country.
The Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and Secretary to the government of the Federation SGF, Boss Mustapha, had also in his opening remarks, said the situation in Kano was being addressed very closely by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control NCDC, in strong partnership with the State government and guidance by the Federal Ministry of health as well as support from our development partners.
According to Mustapha, “The PTF has continued to assess the situation nation”.
He however, added that “appropriate report has been submitted to Mr. President for decision making”.
“It is expected that once a decision is made, the President will address Nigerians on further measures to be taken.”
The PTF said it would continue to pursue the strategy of aggressive testing, detection, isolation, contact tracing, care and management, adding that ” non-pharmaceutical measures will be enhanced”
Mustapha who stated that the PTF team had made appreciable progress in the last four weeks, added that ” we are not yet out of the woods because a lot more is required to be done”.
He advised Nigerians at all levels to take responsibility for their actions, adopt behavioral modification, ensure compliance with advisories and provide guidance to followers and youths.
