Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, yesterday accused the federal government of abandoning the state’s fight against COVID-19.
He also directed the state Ministry of Health to carry out “verbal autopsy” of those who died due to various strange ailments over the weekend.
However, Ganduje’s predecessor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, has alerted President Muhammadu Buhari to the rising cases of mysterious deaths in the state, especially of senior citizens, seeking his intervention in taming the fatalities.
Ganduje, in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service yesterday, monitored in Kano, accused the presidential task force of not supporting and collaborating with the state task force in checking the spread of the disease.
“The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control COVID -19 testing laboratory at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital has been shut for almost a week and we are not able to conduct the test and send it to Abuja for analysis.
“The presidential task force is yet to do anything about this despite my complaints,” Ganduje stated.
However, THISDAY checks showed that contrary to the governor’s statement, the federal government had collaborated with the state government to contain the pandemic.
Last Thursday, the National Coordinator, PTF, Dr. Sani Aliyu, said the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) had redeployed 17 persons to Kano State to support the fight against COVID-19 in the state.
According to him, additional laboratory equipment had also been sent to Kano while the molecular laboratory, where some workers had contracted the virus, was under fumigation and disinfection.
The governor also told the BBC that the state had applied to the federal government for N15 billion to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
He has also directed the state Ministry of Health to carry out a verbal autopsy of those who lost their lives to various strange ailments over the weekend.
According to a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, a combined team from the state Ministry of Health and NCDC has been drafted to eight local government areas within the Kano Emirate Council to perform the autopsy.
Source: THISDAY
