Fear, Confusion In Katsina Over Rising Deaths Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

“People are dying, the graveyard is already filled to capacity. Most of those dying are elderly and a lot of them are said to be having one underlying disease or the other. We now bury up to 12 bodies a day here, against the two or three we used to bury before,” a worker at Danmarna Cemetery graveyard told SaharaReporters."

Fear and anxiety have gripped residents of Katsina State over increasing deaths in the city amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

As of Sunday, Kastina State has recorded over 150 cases of COVID-19 while awaiting test results of many more samples from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control testing laboratory in Abuja.

A source told SaharaReporters that Katsina, the state capital, and Daura were mostly affected.

“People are dying, the graveyard is already filled to capacity. Most of those dying are elderly and a lot of them are said to be having one underlying disease or the other. We now bury up to 12 bodies a day here, against the two or three we used to bury before,” a worker at Danmarna Cemetery graveyard told SaharaReporters.

Some residents of Daura also expressed concerns over the increasing rate of deaths in the community in the last two weeks.

They disclosed that most of the persons buried within the period were aged individuals cutting across both sexes.

Recall that the state index case, Dr Aminu Yakubu, who died few weeks ago, was a Daura-based private medical practitioner.

Also, emir of the town, Alhaji Umar Farouk Umar, was recently discharged after recovering from the virus.

It was gathered that the late Yakubu was the personal physician of the emir and had met with him and his first wife, Hajiya Binta Umar, who also died from COVID-19 complications.