The governor of Kano State, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has accused the Presidential Taskforce Committee on COVID-19 of sidelining the state in its activities despite the intensity of the situation in the state.
Kano State has 77 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease with three deaths.
Speaking in an interview with Hausa service of the BBC on Monday, the governor expressed concern over the current situation in the state describing it as frightening.
He lamented that for about six days, suspected cases, whose samples have been taken could not ascertain their fate because the only testing centre in the state had shutdown.
Daily Trust had reported that since the testing centre was shut, all samples collected in the state were taken to Abuja for analysis at the NCDC laboratories.
Ganduje said “We are in a terrible situation; our situation is really bad and terrifying. Our hope in fighting this pandemic is the testing centre, that laboratory today had shut down for almost six days.
“We also have an acute shortage of sample collection equipment and other consumables, and these consumables you can’t just go to the market and buy them. Owing to all these, those whose samples have been taken continue to live in doom about their status,” he said.
“We don’t receive any assistance and cooperation from the presidential taskforce committee,” he added.
Responding, the national coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Sani Aliyu, at a briefing of the task force in Abuja on Monday, said the federal government was with people of Kano State.
He said the federal government was working with the United Nations and the United States to tackle the rising cases of coronavirus in Kano State.
“A lot has been said about Kano, I just want to further add that we’ve been working very closely with our partners, specifically the UN System and the US government, to ensure that the whole aspect of the Kano response, particularly where we are having difficulties in terms of testing, in terms of access to patients, in terms of logistics, is sorted out and we are very grateful to our donors for coming together and making sure that we have a very coherent response.
“I’ll again emphasize the message to the people of Kano; they are not alone, the federal government will continue to take its responsibility seriously and we’ll continue to work with the state government and other stakeholders to ensure that the issue in Kano is sorted out as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, Governor Ganduje has directed the state Ministry of Health to carry out verbal autopsy of those who lost their lives to various strange ailments over the weekend.
The state commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, in a statement yesterday, said a combined team from the state Ministry of Health and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have been drafted to eight Local Government Areas within the Kano Emirate Council to perform the autopsy exercise.
He said the state Ministry of Health was also working round the clock to ensure adequate availability of drugs for common ailments such as malaria, typhoid fever, meningitis, among others.
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