COVID-19: Nigeria Exceeds Grim Milestone Of 100,000 Cases As NCDC Announces 1,024 New Infections
Nigeria on Sunday surpassed the grim milestone of 100,000 coronavirus cases, as Nigeria Centre for Disease Control announced 1,024 new infections.
As announced by NCDC via its Twitter page, the new COVID-19 toll has now catapulted the country’s caseload to 100,087 cases, amid second wave of infections.
This comes about 11 months after the country recorded its first infection in an Italian traveller on February 27, 2020.
The public health agency in a tweet said the new cases were reported in 16 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
According to the breakdown, Lagos recorded the highest number of cases with 653 infections, followed by Plateau with 63 cases, while Benue, Zamfara and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory recorded 48, 45 and 42 cases respectively.
Other states include: Rivers-27, Ondo-26, Adamawa-26, Kaduna-22, Edo-18, Ogun-16, Imo-12, Kano-9, Yobe-6, Ekiti-5, Jigawa-4 and Osun-2.
1024 new cases of #COVID19Nigeria;
Lagos-653
Plateau-63
Benue-48
Zamfara-45
FCT-42
Rivers-27
Ondo-26
Adamawa-26
Kaduna-22
Edo-18
Ogun-16
Imo-12
Kano-9
Yobe-6
Ekiti-5
Jigawa-4
Osun-2100,087 confirmed
80,030 discharged
1,358 deaths pic.twitter.com/PJ5jeyBoS7— NCDC (@NCDCgov) January 10, 2021
Having fully recovered and tested negative to COVID-19, NCDC announced the discharged of 613 new patients, while 8 deaths were recorded from the virus.
Nigeria has so far tested 1,025,560 persons since the first confirmed case relating to the COVID-19 pandemic was reported in March, 2020.
Till date, 100,087 cases have been confirmed, 80,030 recovered patients have been discharged and 1,358 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Our discharges today includes 253 community recoveries in Lagos State managed in line with guidelines.
A breakdown of cases by state can be found via https://t.co/zQrpNeOfet pic.twitter.com/Ngeq4LJLvz
— NCDC (@NCDCgov) January 10, 2021
Nigeria and much of African countries were in the early stages of the pandemic spared from high rates of infections and deaths unlike in Western countries.
However, since the second wave began in early December, the disease has been spreading ruthlessly, setting new records after months of low numbers that led to a lax on guard to safety and weak enforcement of health protocols.
One in every six persons (16 per cent) tested for COVID-19 in Nigeria in the past two weeks tested positive for the virus, indicating how far the virus has spread.
A review of official data showed that Nigeria set a weekly record of reporting about 10, 000 cases in the past one week.
Globally
The number of COVID-19 infections worldwide surpassed 90 million on Sunday morning, about a year since the highly infectious disease began spreading around the globe.
The grim milestone was reached as many countries commence coronavirus vaccination to get as much of its people vaccinated in record time.
COVID-19, the potentially dangerous pneumonia-like disease caused by the coronavirus and said to have emanated from a local Wuhan market to spread to over 200 countries, has claimed more than 1.9 million lives, according to data from worldometer.info.
Africa also on Sunday passed the milestone of three million confirmed cases of COVID-19, including more than 72,000 deaths, according to Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
South Africa, with more than 1.2 million reported cases, including 32,824 deaths, accounts for more than 30 per cent of the total for the continent of 54 countries and 1.3 billion people.
The high proportion of COVID-19 cases in South Africa could be because the country carries out more tests than many other African countries.
Nigeria is the ninth most affected African country after South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Libya, Kenya and Algeria.
Some Western and European countries have begun mass vaccination following the approval of some produced vaccine effective against the virus, hoping for a quick end of the pandemic.
