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Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire has dismissed reports that coronavirus disease was the cause of the strange deaths in Kano State.
Meridian Spy reported Monday, The Presidential Task Force PTF on COVID-19 identified the cause of the mysterious deaths reported in Kano, following an investigation conducted by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC.
The leader of the PTF Committee on COVID-19, Dr. Nasiru Sani Gwarzo, speaking with newsmen in Kano on Sunday during the official presentation and handing over of the mobile testing laboratory the Aliko Dangote Foundation donated to Kano government, disclosed that investigation had shown that COVID-19 was responsible for some of the deaths.
Gwarzo listed five reasons to link the mass deaths to COVID-19, among which are the age of the deceased persons, concentration of the people in one place and ‘test we have constructed which have element of COVID-19’.
But Ehanire stated that there is still no evidence which suggests that the mysterious deaths in Kano was caused by COVID-19.
In a meeting with members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, he said investigations into the deaths are of three streams and there is no result yet linking them to the virus.
The health minister stated: “That test is still going on, and there are no results.
“There was never a case of him (the task force coordinator) saying 80 per cent of people died from that or any other disease at all.
“The person did not ever say that the people died from coronavirus.”
This however came hours after Gwarzo denied the report linking the mysterious deaths in Kano to the pandemic.
He insisted that he was misquoted as health officials are yet to conclude their investigations.
The leader of the Ministerial Task Team on COVID-19 said: ”It will be wrong for me to preempt the report of the medical experts.
“Some of the national dailies reported a percentage of people that died of COVID-19 in the state, that is not true.
“The state is doing a verbal autopsy and the result is not out.
“I want to use this opportunity to reiterate that the newspaper reports were wrong and absolutely wrong.
“It is not the responsibility of the Ministerial Task Team to announce the result of the findings, it is the state government’s responsibility to do so.”
