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Nigeria investigating jump in deaths in Kano city, coronavirus suspected

Published 23/04/2020, 16:31

By Libby George
LAGOS, April 23 (Reuters) - Nigeria is investigating a
reported sharp rise in deaths in the northern commercial city of
Kano to determine if it is related to the coronavirus outbreak,
health officials said on Thursday.
Nigeria has 873 confirmed coronavirus cases, 73 of them in
Kano state. The national death toll is 28.
On Tuesday the local Daily Trust newspaper reported what it
called the "mysterious" recent deaths of around 150 people in
Kano city.
Sani Aliyu, who heads the country's COVID-19 task force,
said a government team was collating "verbal autopsies" to
determine whether the deaths were linked to the epidemic.
"We don't have a true baseline when it comes to the number
of deaths. It's something we need to investigate quite closely,"
he said during a briefing with the World Heath Organization. "It
may not necessarily be COVID."
A week-long lockdown in Kano state, which was extended this
week, had limited citizens' access to clinics for other
ailments, while the state's coronavirus testing lab was closed
after staff became infected with the virus, Aliyu said.
He said the government was working with the Nigeria Centre
for Disease Control to disinfect the lab and reopen it.
(Additional reporting By Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos and Garba
Muhammed in Kano; editing by John Stonestreet)

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