Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Saturday night confirmed additional 53 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, raising the nation’s total fatality from the disease to 2,361.
The new fatality figure, a confirmation of the biting consequences of the third wave of the pandemic, ranks the highest daily fatality figure in more than a year.
The disease centre, however, cautioned that the figure comprises a backlog of fatalities recorded in Lagos State, Nigeria’s coronavirus pandemic epicentre, between August 4 and 28.
It also added that the figure of discharged patients, which now stands at 178,047 as 8,232 persons were discharged after recovering from the infection on Saturday.
The latest figures also includes the backlog of statistics from the country’s commercial hub for the same period of August 4 to 28.
Meanwhile, NCDC also disclosed that a total of 650 new infections were confirmed across 16 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
According to the breakdown of new cases, Lagos state — the epicentre of the pandemic in Nigeria — recorded the highest number of new infections with 261 new positive samples; followed by Ondo with 95, and Rivers with 80.
Other states with new cases include Akwa Ibom (59), Oyo (24), Ekiti (22), Delta (20), Edo (18), Enugu (15), Bayelsa (14), Ogun (11), Kaduna (8), Plateau (7), Kano (6), FCT (5), Gombe (3) and Abia (2).
However, 53 additional persons were confirmed to have died of COVID-19 complications, bringing the fatality toll across the 36 states and the FCT to 2,361.
Since the index case of COVID-19 on February 27, 2020, a total of 190,983 infections have now been confirmed across Nigeria.
According to the NCDC, the figures reported on Saturday included “a backlog of discharged cases and deaths for Lagos state from 4th August 2021”.
