COVID-19: NGO wants Kano to provide adequate PPE

The African Centre for Innovative Research and Development (AFRI-CIRD) has called on the Kano state government and COVID-19 fund raising committee to urgently ensure that hospitals in the state are provided with sufficient personal protective equipment to avert increase in mortality rate in the state.

Founder/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NGO, Mohammed Bello, made the call in a press statement made available to the Daily Times in Bauchi on Friday.

Mohammed said since the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease in Nigeria and its spread to various states, including Kano, AFRI-CIRD has keenly followed the track of events and measures engendered by the national and state governments in both preventive and response measures.

Popular amongst the measures, Mohammed noted include the formation of both COVID-19 task force and fund raising committees to support the implementation of plethora of policy frameworks in preventive, response and palliatives resulting from the possible accumulated economic hardship of containing the pandemic.

“More recently in Kano state, there has been series of reports in both print and electronic media on the increased mortality rate in the state.

“Particularly, on April 20, NTA news bar presented a terrifying caption that said 100 people died in Kano from a strange illness,” Mohammed recalled.

AFRI-CIRD while noting that the incident has come with a lot of controversy which invariably made it difficult to urgently tame the issue, said however, that it is following the trend of analysis on the probable cause and have studied the several pieces of articles by several medical experts in the state in an attempt to offer explanations for the possible increased mortality rate in the state.

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The press release said AFRI-CIRD has noted some of the probable causes as identified from several explanations offered by medical experts in the state, including those of Prof. Usman Yusuf of hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation.

These, Mohammed said include lack of medical care for the chronically ill due to the lockdown, which Prof. Usman stressed can make the elderly more vulnerable to other infections and death in some cases.

Mohammed, who attributed the fears to unavailability of personal protective equipment for the health personnel to curtail the possible transmission of COVID-19, said that must have led to possible neglect of patients with symptoms of COVID-19 which perhaps may be suffering from other possible ailments.