File: Cemetery

…Meningitis possible cause of increased deaths

By Bashir Bello and Abdulmumin Murtala

Undertakers at  Kano cemeteries on Thursday said the number of corpses being buried on daily basis is on the increase compared to the past.

The undertakers disclosed to Saturday Vanguard at the Danagundi Cemetery in Kano Municipal area and Farm Centre  Cemetery in Tarauni local government area of the state.

An undertaker in Dan Agundi cemetery, Muhammad Inuwa said “there have been more burials in recent days here.”

Inuwa who took our correspondent round the graveyard pointed at clusters of new graves at the cemetery.

According to him, “Only yesterday (Wednesday), we buried about nine persons and all of them were elderly persons. Before now, we spent days without burying a single corpse here.

“Today (Thursday), between 10am and 1pm, we buried five persons and that was all for the day.

“But the deaths, I think, have to do with the hot weather. Once it is hot weather, people die here,”he said, indicating that Meningitis could be responsible for the recent deaths. “Because of religious  rites, autopsy is usually not carried out when people die here. But our experience is that when rain begins to  fall  the number of deaths will reduce. Since the beginning of the hot weather, about 50 people have been brought here for burial. It is just a coincidence with the coronavirus outbreak. Some of the death were also as a result of diabetes and hypertension,” Inuwa said.

A visit to another graveyard, the Farm Centre Cementery in Tarauni Local Government, one of the undertakers who pleaded anonymity told Vanguard that before now they use to bury only four or five corpses in a day but in the last 14 days, they have been burying over fifteen corpses daily.

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“Initially we used to bury four or five corpses daily in this cemetery, but since the advent of this mysterious deaths, we have been burying 15, 16 and even 17 corpses a day. We have buried nine in the morning and you can see we are digging two graves already for the burial of two people that have been reported a while ago. Before sunset there might be more.

“This is even less than the major cemeteries in the city where the figures are  higher. But at the rate at which we are burying corpses here we have buried about 90 in the last seven days” he added.

In the past few days, there have been serious concerns as messages continued to exchange hands on social media over the increased number of deaths in the state, although the cause was officially yet to be ascertained.

The Kano state government said in the week that it would launch an investigation into the stories of mysterious deaths. A committee was set up for that.

Recall that the state had penultimate Saturday recorded it first index case and as of the time of filing in this report  73  cases and one death had been confirmed. No patient had been  discharged.

Vanguard