The deputy coordinator of Kano State COVID-19 Response Team, Dr Sabitu Shu’aibu has revealed that the state government had put up a system to investigate if there was a link between COVID-19 and the deaths in the state.
The investigation is in response to the people’s agitations and concerns over reported mass deaths of people in the state.
According to Dr Sabitu, the state government has begun verbal autopsy to ascertain the possible causes of the deaths and to enable the authorities to take the necessary measure toward ending the problem.
“Kano State government had begun house-to-house engagement with families of those that had died to carefully administer questions on the symptoms exhibited by the victims before they died.
“This is what is termed clinically as a verbal autopsy, and it will allow health professionals to predict the possible causes of the recorded deaths.”
Mysterious Deaths: Kano Adopts Verbal Autopsy
While shedding more light on the measure put in place, Dr Usman Bashir of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) said a verbal autopsy is the best in a situation where an autopsy is not conducted when the dead had already been buried.
He stressed that the adoption of the verbal autopsy would unravel the mystery of the mass deaths.
“The verbal autopsies would surely unravel things that we are not even looking at because we have overstretched our energy and resources on COVID-19.
“It is an excellent way of ascertaining the epidemic at hand, or it could be that we are also experiencing another ongoing pandemic.
Meanwhile, the state governor, Umar Ganduje has stated that the COVID-19 situation in the state is getting tougher but assured that his administration is 100% committed to seeing an end to the pandemic.
However, he said, the state government has devised some measures such as boundary closure to curb the spread of the virus in the state.
He also admitted that in terms of curative measures, the state was facing some challenges.
