Governors of 19 northern Nigerian states have shut down all traditional koranic schools in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The estimated nine million children attending the schools will be sent home.

Many Muslim parents in Nigeria send their children, often as young as six, to other towns and villages to learn the Koran.

They frequently live in crowded accommodation, begging on the streets when they are not in class.

The governors called for virus testing centres to be set up in the north, which has yet to establish a single facility despite a recent increase in cases.

Restrictions on movement are in force in three parts of Nigeria, the capital, Abuja, as well as Lagos and Ogun states.