By Ibrahim Shuaibu
The five-man committee set up by Jigawa State Government to investigate recent strange deaths in Hadejia town has attributed the incidence to pre-existing chronic illnesses.
The five-man committee also revealed that the number of deaths recorded in the area was not related to COVID-19.
The committee Chairman, Dr. Mahmud Abdulwahab said the investigation which was conducted with WHO and NCDC officials collected three set of data from the Hospital, community and the two graveyards.
Dr. Mahmud said at the hospital they recorded 44 deaths over a week period, at the community there were 46 deaths while at the two graveyards in the town 92 deaths were recorded.
“Our finding was that none of the deceased had history of travel to any state where there is cases of Coronavirus.
“Similarly, none of them also had history of contact with anybody that was suspected or confirmed of having COVID-19.
“Incidentally also 70 per cent of the 46 people that died in the community within the one week period had pre-existing illness; either they had diabetes, stroke, liver disease, and dementia or kidney diseases.
“So you can see that they were above 60 years of age and were already having pre-existing chronic illnesses,” he said.
According to him, only one of the deceased had symptoms the community suspected of COVID-19 because he had fever, difficulty in breathing and diahrial disease, cough and chest pain.
“So it was only one person out of the 46 that had these symptoms that are suggestive of COVID-19 and unfortunately he died at home and no sample was taken. He said the committee would have recommended to the state government that his close contacts especially his family be quarantined and possibly, samples be taken to make sure that the state was not dealing with COVID-19 disease in the town.
“So overall our conclusion is that there is no significant increase in mortality in Hadejia because we have compared our data with our previous data especially from the hospital and the graveyard count we conducted that week and the week before.
“We have not seen any significant increase in deaths either in the hospital or in the number of graves that we have seen at the graveyards,” he concluded.
Recalls that Jigawa State has recorded unexplained deaths of people in recent days.
