The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 said it has deployed seventeen of it’s members to help tame the Covid-19 and other health crisis in Kano State.
The Nigeria’s National Coordinator of the PTF on Covid-19 Dr Sani Aliyu disclosed this Monday afternoon in an interview with the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC Hausa). Aliyu who was responding to the accusations of the Kano state government of negligence said his team has been working round the clock to ensure that testing centres are been activated in Kano.
The Kano state government had on Monday morning disclosed to the BBC Hausa of the demands they made to the Federal Government on health facilities but are yet to be given any response.
The PTF Covid-19 Coordinator also said that some of the medical personnel sent to Lagos will be redeployed to Kano. “…we have seventeen of our members already in Kano….and we have concluded all modalities to begin testing and proper treatments of patients in the state….. you will notice there are plenty of health personnel in Lagos, some of them will be taken to Kano…. we also hard meetings with the UN…. within the shortest period of time, testing will start in Kano. “Aliyu said.
However, dismissed estwhile Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme Professor Usman Yusuf did not agree with the PTF coordinator. “it is pure politics, they can’t be playing politics with lives of kano people….” Usman told BBC Hausa. Asked why he said its politics since it is the same APC government in Kano and in the national level, Usman said “it is politics within themselves”. “….no one has the time to do this kind of their politics…. I have lost three of my colleagues who are professors and two other professors are still lying sick in Kano…. They are lying, no medical personnel have been sent to Kano, all hospitals are closing because they are not equipped…. Even in the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, the doctors have packed up because their are no facilities.
Kano state is the worst affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic after Lagos in Nigeria.