If very urgent steps are not taken right now, Kano – the most populous city in the most populated country in the world’s poorest continent – will become the epicentre of COVID-19 in Africa, like New York in America.
The big difference is that while New York is the financial capital of the world in the world’s wealthiest nation, Kano is the most populated city in the poverty capital of the world.
I have always said that based on virus epidemiology, population, high poverty and poor healthcare, Kano alone could have more confirmed positive COVID-19 cases than the whole country put together.
But because there are no enough testing (only about 7000 tests for over 200million Nigerians), we might not find the true picture of the pandemic in Nigeria.
How do we find cases when we conduct so few tests?
Then on Monday April 20th 2020, there was a news scroll on NTA News Now captioned “100 People Died in Kano from a strange Illness.” They were buried in mass grave.
What illness can be stranger than COVID-19 at this moment in history?
We are now seeing more cases because the test centre in Kano started working just two weeks ago, several months behind the virus timeline in Nigeria. Unfortunately as we speak, no one really knows the true incidence & prevalence of COVID-19 Disease in Kano.
Even the lock down measures in that state are not being effectively observed as some people still go about their normal businesses as though there is nothing to worry about.
Sadly, there is a large segment of the residents of Kano state who still believe Coronavirus is a hoax. A video that recently went viral showed hundreds of people gathered to play football in Kurna, a community near Bukavu Barracks, Kano just a few days ago.
In a final analysis,
- Kano needs more Coronavirus testing. Kano needs detailed investigation of the mysterious deaths.
- Kano must not be allowed to become a #COVID-19 epicentre because if that happens, the whole of northern Nigeria and the entire nation will be in great danger!
This is not the time for people to politicize, discriminate, segregate, brainwash, subjugate, trivialize and weaponize religion for political gains. Coronavirus does not know religion, ethnicity, APC/PDP, North/South. It kills across the divides.
As members of one human family, we must all stand up to this virus and live or we will all perish together. As Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau said, ‘A Pandemic anywhere is a Pandemic everywhere’.
Kano must not be allowed to become the epicentre of Coronavirus in Africa.
Written by Twitter User @OurFirstDoctor
