KANO: ‘Strange Disease’ Kills 150 As Ganduje Rules Out Community Transmission Of COVID-19

A strange disease reportedly killed no fewer than 150 residents of Kano State within 48 hours.

Three cemeteries in the state were said to have received unusual number corpses due to deaths resulting from the strange disease.

The deaths occurred between Friday and Saturday last week, according to reports.

Meanwhile, Kano recorded the unusual number of deaths amidst rising confirmed cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the state.

As of Monday, April 21, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said the state had recorded a total of 59 COVID-19 cases.

The sudden rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases had placed Kano as the third worst hit state by the deadly virus.

Meanwhile, in a statement published on the Kano State Government official website on Tuesday, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje ruled out the possibility of community transmission of COVID-19 in the state.

“So far we don’t have very serious cases where an index cases need the usage of Ventilators and Monitors. But that doesn’t mean we shall sit without doing anything. We are doing our best,” said Ganduje when he received the DG NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, at the Kano State Government House, on Monday.

“All the index cases we have are within the metropolitan local governments. We can therefore say, community transmission is not there. So it could be true to say we need more Testing Centres. There is a need to increase our capacity for testing our suspected cases. At the same time we also need more collection centres,” he pleads with NCDC.

Ganduje attributed the sudden rise of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Kano to the cosmopolitan nature and set up of the state.

“Being the most populous state in the country among other factors, are reasons for the high numbers we are recording.

“Lagos being the second populous state in the country and Abuja being the federal Capital, there is no surprise that the numbers are rising up. So also when Kano becomes the third in this category. Is just like what is happening in other global cities. Due to the metropolitan nature of the settlement.

“By the time we also have new behaviours of our people, we thought we should also get new strategy to deal with those new behaviours. That is why we are coming up with our Kano State Infectious Diseases Regulation 2020 to take care of those new public behaviours.”

Ganduje also appealed to the federal government for financial support, saying: “We need interface, rapid response and we need good coordination. As the third state in the category after Lagos state and the federal Capital Territory, Abuja, as the most affected states, we need funds to respond well to this deadly COVID-19 pandemic.”