Coronavirus: Family Can’t Claim Dead Bodies Of Victims – FG

The federal government, on Friday, said it would not allow the family of Coronavirus (COVID-19) victims to claim their corpses.
The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, stated this at a forum organized by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
According to Mohammed, the corpses of persons who died from COVID-19 in the country would be handled by the Ministry of Health.
The minister said the government would be risking the lives of such families if it allowed them to handle the bodies of victims because they are contagious.
“Coronavirus is very dangerous and contagious; there is no medicine for it yet and it is not just capable of killing, overwhelming healthcare system, it will destroy the economy,” said Mohammed.
“In some countries, they are putting dead bodies in big refrigerators, because the morgues have filled up. Nigerians should not forget that these are not the type of corpses that can be claimed for burial because it must be handled by the ministry of health,” he said.
Mohammed commended Nigerians for complying with the 14-day lockdown declared in Lagos, Ogun and the FCT by President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday, as well as those declared by various state governments.
He urged Nigerians to “stay safe, obey simple instructions of basic hygiene and social distancing,” adding that “in a few weeks, we will resume our normal life”.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has so far announced 190 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in the country.
Twenty persons have so recovered from the disease and have been discharged, while two deaths have been recorded in the country since the first confirmed case on February 27.