AFRICA/BURUNDI - Did Covid-19, whose incidence is minimized by the authorities, cause the President to die?

Bujumbura (Agenzia Fides) - The sudden death of outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza is raising questions in Burundi about the real causes of death. The Burundian Head of State passed away on June 8 at Cinusi's Karusi hospital, officially due to a heart attack. He leaves the scene before having handed over power, with a ceremony that was supposed to take place on August 20, to his successor, General Évariste Ndayishimiye, elected on May 24 (see Fides, 27/5/2020).
The death of the President who governed Burundi for fifteen years should therefore not leave an institutional vacuum, but the doubt remains as to whether Covid-19 caused the death of the President, whose spread in Burundi has so far been minimized by local authorities, to the point of expelling the representation of the World Health Organization (WHO) from the Country.
Doubts about the President's death arise from the fact that doctors had mentioned Covid-19 the day after his hospitalization. Furthermore, one of the few ventilators with which the hospital in Bujumbura is equipped had been transported by helicopter to Karusi on June 8, but it was now too late to save the President's life
Finally a few days ago Nkurunziza's wife had been transferred to a health facility in Kenya with the suspicion that she had been tested positive with the coronavirus. She is now recovering and is now back in Burundi.
Burundian authorities admit the existence of 83 cases deemed positive for coronavirus, including one death, while doctors report hundreds of "hidden cases", including several dozen deaths. "We hope that this time the government has understood that the situation is explosive, that it must fight this pandemic with its head held high", say the doctors. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 10/6/2020)

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