Mumini Abdulkareem
It took a while before the cosmopolitan city of Kano recorded its first Covid-19 case, a strain of the coronavirus. But since that outbreak, the state has never remained the same again.
At the last count, the statistics from Kano as regards the pandemic were 311 positive cases, eight deaths and no discharge yet according the National Centre for Diseases Control (NCDC) causing a very disturbing trend with the Federal Government focusing on partnership with the state government to find solution to the issue.
Since the pronouncement by the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje of the likely increase in community transmission, Nasiru Gwarzo, Head of the Presidential Covid-19 Taskforce in Kano has gone further to paint a clearer picture of the situation with the admittance in a recent report of the BCC Hausa Service that the rate of community transmission has gone as high as 80 percent in Kano with the increase number of tests conducted.
Already, there are fears that the state might become the epicentre of the disease in the North-Western part of the country and second only to the commercial city of Lagos in the country.
While the state government has adopted a number of measures which include the recent lockdown, dismantling of the Almajiri system with over a thousand pupils/students returned to their states of origin and a N800 million worth palliative package plan according Governor Ganduje targeted at 50,000 households in its first phase, the recent Covid-19 data from the state has only pointed to the need for authorities to devise more means to respond to the issue to avert a looming disaster especially with its possible attendant consequences it might have on the economic and population of the state and the country.
But what is the way forward for authorities in Kano in addition to the combined efforts of the state and Federal Government and additional testing centres? Have they looked deep and far enough in this circumstance or there is the need to refocused the lens on other factors of interests in the state?
According to Dr Abdulraheem Nurudeen, Consultant Paediatric Surgeon, the way forward is “testing, testing and testing”, adding that the government should ignore protesters against total lockdown in Kano.
“I think the way forward is to intensify effort in testing and enforce all the preventive measures to the latter. We all know that in Kano State, it is as if we delayed too long before we started testing which was the main problem.
“But more people have been tested now than before and if we do not quickly improve the testing, those people may not have been detected.
So what is important now is testing, testing and testing and enforce all the social distance measures like avoiding social gathering which must be enforced to the latter.
“They should ignore all those protesting against the lockdown. It is good that federal government has imposed total lockdown in that part of the country and the only thing is now to ensure people are really lockdown through enforcement”, he added.
In his reaction, Dr Suleiman Anoba, a Consultant Paediatrician at the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, said government must in addition to massive testing embarked on massive awareness campaign provide the health workers who will be at the frontline all the necessary protection and materials needed to handle situation.
He said “Even though it’s late, but things can still be done to correct the already bad situation and that is government will have to stand up on its toes to take up that responsibility of massive testing, massive public awareness and campaign, issue of isolation and how the need for serious preventive measures.
“The state also first need to provide the materials needed for the care and emergency situation at this stage to give workers in the health sector the confidence to really work with all sincerity and integrity. The lives of the health workers must first of all be protected because the situation is already bad.
“On the massive testing, there is the need to do serious contact tracing to get all the contacts of suppose cases for test before going to non-restricted contact tracing to get the asymptomatic positive patients so that they can well be isolated for real treatment and get the contacts that are yet to be positive to also go on isolation”, he submitted
