ABDULLAHI Ganduje, Governor of  Kano State has reacted to report by Ministerial Task Force Team which claimed that about 60 per cent of people who died​ during the mysterious deaths in Kano was caused as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, saying the report was misleading.

“The report by the Technical Committee from the Federal Ministry of Health indicating that 60 per cent of the mysterious deaths in Kano was related to COVID-19, I think all they​ indicated certainly lacked correlation,” Ganduje said.

“In fact, their data cannot pass the test of time, reliability and validity. Once such findings could not pass validity and reliability, you can as well, throw away that investigation into an ocean, signifying nothing, reporting nothing and misleading almost everybody.”

According to a publication on the official website of Kano State, Ganduje stated this when he received the report of a study undertaken by a combined team of Kano State Ministry of Health and development partners, including the World Health Organization, (WHO), National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), AFENET and Lafiya Projects.

He stated that the report indicated that only 15.9 per cent of the deaths were caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is the report of the Technical Committee appointed by Kano State Government as earlier promised and we have seen this report;​ and I do congratulate this team of experts,” the governor said.

Ganduje  said the report will be forwarded to President Muhammadu Buhari, Minister of Health,  chairman of the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19,  National Coordinator on COVID-19.

Muktar Gadanya, Lead Consultant and a  professor of Infectious Diseases from Bayero University Kano (BUK) who presented the Mortality Review (Verbal Autopsy) findings by the team, countered the Minister of Health comments which was based on findings by the Ministerial Taskforce Team, which earlier said the large number of the mysterious deaths were caused by COVID-19.

According to him, the team of researchers discovered that about 1,774 deaths were recorded, but the researchers traced the relatives of about 1604 of the deceased which represented over 90 per cent of the total figure.

Gadanya maintained that out of 1604 cases traced, only 255 cases of deaths were linked to COVID-19 pandemic, representing 15.9 per cent.

He however, attributed the remaining deaths to diseases related to hypertension, diabetes, malaria and other commonly identified ailments, including self-medication by victims who could not approach the hospitals for fear of being identified as COVID-19 patients, including disruption of medical care and down turn in economic activities.