Nigeria records lowest daily infection since December

Nigeria has recorded its lowest daily COVID-19 infections since the beginning of the second wave last December.

On Sunday, 685 new cases were reported in 16 states, indicating a significant decrease from the 1, 883 reported in the previous 24 hours.

The latest figure took the total number of infections in the country to 131,242, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced on its microsite Sunday night.

Nigeria also recorded eight deaths from COVID-19 on Sunday, raising the country’s fatality to 1,586 in total.

Since early December, there has been an increase in reported cases and deaths from COVID-19 across the country.

Statistics

Nigeria recorded fewer COVID-19 infections and deaths last week compared to the previous week, PREMIUM TIMES’ review of official data showed.

Between Sunday and Saturday (January 24-30), 9,955 persons tested positive for the viral disease, a 14 per cent reduction from the 11, 659 reported in the week before.

Also, 76 lives were lost to COVID-19 complications last week, a seven per cent reduction when compared to the previous week’s record of 82 fatalities.

The reduction may be due to the decrease in the number of tests carried out during the week.

According to the data provided by the NCDC, health officials tested 61,180 samples last week — lower than the 87,092 tests carried out in the previous week.

Since the pandemic broke out in February last year, the country has carried out 1,302,410 tests.

Specifics

The 685 new cases were reported from 16 states – Lagos (355), Kaduna (58), Nasarawa (46), Kano (40), Akwa Ibom (33), Katsina (26), Ogun (25), Osun (21), Rivers (16), Edo (15), Oyo (13), Ondo (12), Borno (11), Ekiti (9), Kebbi (3), and Plateau (2).

Lagos led in Sunday’s tally with 355 new cases; followed by Kaduna with 58.

Of the over 131,000 cases, a total of 104,989 patients have recovered across the country.

Meanwhile, there are nearly 25,000 patients still receiving treatments in isolation centres.

As Nigeria continues to battle the second wave of the virus, the presidency has warned against violations of safety guidelines issued to curtail the spread of the virus.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement issued on Sunday, said further violations of the protocols could lead to fresh lockdown.