The World Health Organization and health officials in the northern Nigerian state of Kano have launched a probe into reports of increases in unusual deaths in the state.
According to the state Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje, a team of experts is gathering hospital records and interviewing families of those who died at home to determine the actual cause of death.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has also ordered a 14-day lockdown in Kano following the reported spike in deaths.
Buhari said the government will deploy all "human, material and technical" assistance to contain the coronavirus in the state, and a team has been sent to investigate.
Preliminary investigations by the state ministry of health suggest that the increase in mortality was not unusual compared to other years, Ganduje said.
Still, officials are interviewing cemetery workers, checking hospital records and asking residents about family members who died at home, the governor said.
State officials had earlier said the the deaths were not Covid-related and attributed the deaths to meningitis, diabetes, hypertension, and other illnesses, even though no autopsies have not been done.
Kano isn't the only place to see an increase in deaths.
In the US, deaths began to increase as COVID 19 increases.
A Yale School of Public Health team, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, found about 15,000 excess deaths from March 1 to April 4. During the same time, states reported 8,000 deaths from Covid-19.
The Testimony of The Grave Digger
A gravedigger, Kabiru Nasidi Sabon-Sara, who has worked at the Dandolo Cemetery in Kano city for over 30 years, told CNN funerals carried out at the graveyard have doubled.
Sabon-Sara said he began noticing the spike in deaths a day before Ramadan, and numbers have continued to rise since state authorities imposed a lockdown to curb a spread of the virus.
"In Dandolo we get between 35 to 40 burials, and it used to be less than that, between 13 to 15 at most in a day," Sabon-Sara said.
He said one of the diggers who joined a funeral procession died, and some other diggers have been ill.
"We don't have anything to protect ourselves. Our colleagues are falling sick. We need assistance from the government," Sabon-Sara told CNN.
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