Baba Tela, Bauchi State Deputy Governor said about 7 medical health personnel consisting of 5 doctors and 2 nurses have tested positive for coronavirus in Azare, the headquarters of Katagum LGA of the state.
The Deputy Governor stated this wile briefing journalists in Bauchi on Saturday.
He said a journalist with the correspondent Chapel of the state has also tested positive for the dreaded virus.
“I want to extend to you the message of his Excellency the Executive Governor of Bauchi who asked me to tell you that any journalist who wants to be tested could submit themselves to the State’s taskforce to get his sample collected for medical examination”, Baba Tela said.
Baba Tela also debunked rumours making the rounds that about 300 people have died of covid-19 in Azare as alleged by an ex-lawmaker who wrote a letter to the Presidency hinting about ‘fatalities.’
“I’m sure he has not counted the deaths and he has not gone to the grave yard or had a conversation with people who buried the deaths, so how could someone come up with figures just like that”, he insisted.
In a letter written to President Buhari by Hon. Ibrahim Baba, a former law maker representing Katagum who was deposed of his position by an Appeal Court in Jos, the former lawmaker alleged that there was “massive outbreak of coronavirus in Azare town and environs in Bauchi State, which has already resulted in over 100 fatalities in the last one week.”
The Former law maker attributed the mysterious death to COVID-19, saying the incident has “thrown the entire area into great mourning, panic and confusion.
Ibrahim in the letter indicated that the “centrality and proximity of Azare to Bauchi, Kano and some major cities of Jigawa State make the town’s large population susceptible to the virus due to the already existing large cases of the disease in those areas.”
But the deputy governor denied the figures, saying they were highly exaggerated.
Baba Tela also said the ailment that killed the people in Azare town were yet to be established by health workers in the state; “but we are liaising with the WHO and UNICEF to retrain our health care workers in Azare to boost their capacity to respond to the situation on ground”, he added.
