Kano Deaths: Most Victims Were Elderly, Had Pneumonia – Doctor

A federal government doctor in Kano State has revealed that most victims of the mysterious deaths in the state were elderly and had pneumonia.

There had been recent reports of sudden mass deaths in the state, with most of the reports attributing the deaths to a strange disease.

Ibrahim Musa, who works with a federal hospital in Kano, did not attribute the deaths to Coronavirus (COVID-19) but noted that they started happening during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Musa told The Guardian UK that people suffering from other conditions had also been put at risk and denied access to treatment because emergency services had been filled to capacity.

He said, “Pneumonia cases have been rising but that is not being recorded as Covid-19 because they are not testing. The pattern emerging widely is that elderly people are dying more. These deaths started happening when the lockdown was on the ground.

“Most of the hospitals in Kano have scaled down their activities. But when the services are down, and you need urgent treatment, it is hard because now emergency services are filled to capacity. So people are suffering from conditions they should be receiving treatment for but they can’t access the treatment. This is what we are seeing,” Musa said.

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari had on Monday declared a 24-day total lockdown in Kano to enable authorities unravel the cause of the mysterious deaths and also curb the spread of Coronavirus in the state.

Buhari said the federal government would deploy “all the necessary human, material and technical resources” to support the state.

Figures announced by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) showed that Kano currently has 77 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and is the third worst hit state by the virus.

The NCDC had stopped testing in Kano after some of its officials in the state contracted the virus.