Mr Abba Anwar, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, quoted Ganduje as saying this in a statement on Saturday in Kano.

According to the statement, the governor made the declaration at a news conference of the state’s Task Force on COVID-19.

Ganduje said that the feat was achieved due to his unrelenting commitment and political will in leading the response against COVID-19 pandemic.

He noted that the COVID-19 samples collected in the state surpassed the benchmark set out by Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

The governor said: “While NCDC sets 100 benchmark of sample collection per state, Kano State’s sample collection goes up to hundreds”.

“Strengthening and stabilising the position which also led to drastic drop of the pandemic in the state. With the trend of samples collected, tested and the results that came out of them, we are really winning the war against COVID-19 in Kano State.”

The statement also quoted Dr Tijjani Hussaini, the state’s Technical Coordinator Task Force on COVID-19, as saying that the state had five molecular testing centres to enhance detection and effective response to the pandemic.

“Because of the fact that the size of samples collected in the state outstripped what NCDC recommended, that is 100 per state, while we collect in thousands”.

“And with the five testing centres in the state, we still take some of our samples to Abuja for testing.”

The state Ministry of Health announced that the state had so far conducted 13,727 COVID-19 sample tests, since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The ministry announced via its verified Twitter handle @KNSMOH, that the samples were tested as at Friday, July 3.

It said that five new cases of the virus were confirmed of the 809 samples tested on Friday, while 26 more COVID-19 patients discharged.

The ministry disclosed that the state recorded a total of 1,262 confirmed cases of the disease; of which 207 were active cases, 1,003 discharged and 52 deaths. (NAN)