COVID-19 cases in Katsina rise to 30 as commissioner contests discharge of four

The number of patients who tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Katsina State has risen to 30, with one death.

Four have reportedly been discharged, having tested negative to the disease after treatment.

This Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) disclosed this on its Twitter handle, @NCDCgov, late Saturday night.

However, controversy has trailed the identities of the four that were discharged, with state officials initially confirming and later recanting on their identities.

Chairman, Coronavirus Public Enlightenment Committee in Daura Council, Hussaini Umar, said those discharged were an aide and three family members of the index case.

But the state Commissioner for Health, Yakubu Nuhu, refuted the claim, saying a second round of testing was still needed before they would be discharged.

Nuhu, however, asked the source of the patients’ discharge story to withdraw it pending official confirmation.

The state recorded its index case more than two weeks ago after Dr. Aliyu Yakubu, a private medical practitioner, died at the Air Force Reference Hospital, Daura.

His wife and two children, who later tested positive for the disease, were quarantined at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Katsina isolation centre.

Katsina, Batagarawa, Daura, Dutsinma, Mani, Jibia and Safana councils have been locked down after cases of the disease were confirmed in them.

It is unclear which councils the nine new cases emanated from, but the state government said that it would lock down any council where a case is confirmed.