According to findings by SaharaReporters, the situation has sent panic across Nguru, Potiskum and Gashua communities where residents have expressed fear of more of such deaths taking place in the coming days.
A popular businessman from Nguru in Yobe State, Alhaji Abdulhamid Nuhu, is among dozens of persons that died on Saturday from Coronavirus complications.
According to findings by SaharaReporters, the situation has sent panic across Nguru, Potiskum and Gashua communities where residents have expressed fear of more of such deaths taking place in the coming days.
Residents told our correspondent that many of those who died showed symptoms of Coronavirus.
The people further told SaharaReporters that despite the increase in the strange deaths, there has been almost no attempt by the state government to take samples or conduct tests to know how many persons may have been infected with the deadly virus and take necessary measures to protect others.
Between March 30 to today, it was gathered that hundreds or persons succumbed to the virus, leaving cemetery workers to deal with an unusual number of corpses to bury.
Speaking on the issue, a resident of Nguru said, “Every day, the biggest activity is death and burials. Our graveyards are running out of space to bury the dead. We are all scared and helpless.
“Yobe State lacks leadership. The current leadership is grossly incompetent and corrupt to the extent that they don’t even know what to do in this situation or they just don’t want to do anything deliberately, and they will get away with it. [story_link align="left"]80453[/story_link]
“Yobe State is in a state of panic and confusion. The state government has so far shown lack of capacity to handle this deadly disease.
“The committee handling COVID-19 is composed of corrupt and incompetent people who are only keen to cash on a tragedy.”
There is fear that community transmission of Coronavirus is going on in Yobe State and lack of testing capacity or willingness to do so by the authorities has led to more persons contracting the virus.
SaharaReporters investigation shows that all major hospitals in Nguru, Potiskum and Gashua are in terrible state, thereby making in difficult for sick persons to access care.
Medical and health workers in most public hospitals in Gashua, Nguru and Postiskum have complained of lack of Personal Protective Equipment to attend to sick patients despite hundreds of millions budgeted for the health sector in the state annually.
When SaharaReporters reached out to Mamman Mohammed, Director of Press and Public Affairs to the Yobe State Government, he attributed the increased deaths to heat.
He said, "What is happening in Gashua is a case of intense heat. At this time of the year, we have cases of dehydration and intense heat, so this is basically the problem there but we also have isolation centres at the Federal Medical Center, Nguru, which is some few kilometres away from Gashua, so any case from there would be moved to Nguru.[story_link align="left"]80499[/story_link]
"Preliminary report from the investigative medical team to Gashua indicate cases of intense heat and dehydration and not Coronavirus related."
Recall that on Wednesday SaharaReporters reported that no less than 155 persons had died in Gashua and Potiskum areas of the state over the last six days after exhibiting Coronavirus symptoms.
On Friday facts also emerged that at least 25 staff of Gashua General Hospital had contracted COVID-19 after treating patients, who exhibited symptoms of the virus.