Kano State Government has revealed on Wednesday that it has applied for
N15b from the Federal Government to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
This
was disclosed bythe state governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, during a
television programme ‘Politics Today’ aired on Channels Television and
monitored by Daily Trust.
The governor stated that the state had
not received a dime from the federal government as support to fight the
COVID-19 disease since when the state recorded its first index case of
the virus. Kano’s COVID-19 cases are rising by the day and in just over a
week, the cases are close to a hundred. Ganduje had last week declared a
lockdown to curb the spread of the virus within the state. He explained
that the N15b would be expended in paying voluntary health workers
engaged by the state to support the health personnel, personal
protective equipment (PPE) and the creation of other testing centres.
“You
can understand that Kano is the most populated in the country hence the
only testing centre at AKTH is not enough for us,” said Ganduje.
However, reacting to the reported mass death in the state, the governor
denied the report.
Daily Trust had reported that more than 150
persons had died of in three days last week but Ganduje said the figure
is false. The Presidential Task force on COVID-19, on Wednesday,
announced an investigation into the reported death so as to ascertain
the actual cause and the number of deaths. The Health Minister, Dr
Osagie Ehanire, announced this at the daily briefing of the task force
in Abuja, noting that the task force was waiting for the arrival of its
epidemiologists.
However, Ganduje said a survey and
investigation conducted by his government at some of the burial grounds
discovered that 13 people died not the figure quoted by the media.