Coordinator of Kano State Technical Response Team on COVID-19, Dr Tijjani Hussain, has said that the state has begun conducting what he called ‘verbal autopsy’ to unravel the cause of the mysterious deaths in the state.
Hussain said this on Monday while speaking with a radio station, Wazobia 95.1 FM Kano.
There has been a surge in the number of deaths in the past few days in Kano.
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, on Sunday, acknowledged the deaths, saying they were not coronavirus-related.
Hussain, however, told the radio station that the religion of the majority of Kano residents does not encourage autopsy before burial.
“In Kano, which is mainly a Muslim state, normal autopsies are not conducted where causes of deaths are established before people are buried,” he said.
Hussain added that most of the deaths occur in homes and not in medical facilities.
“However, in medical practice, there is what is called verbal autopsy. Verbal autopsy means you are asking relatives of signs and symptoms of several other diseases so that you can see if you can pin the cause of death to a particular disease,” he said.
The coordinator further said that three COVID-19 patients are on the run in the state.
According to him, the patients have switched off their phones and their homes are deserted after testing positive for the virus.
