The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says it has reported a surge in the death rate from Covid-19 complications as infections continue to rise sharply across the country.
The NCDC announced that Nigeria has recorded 650 new cases in 16 states of the federation and the FCT, with 56 deaths across the country on Saturday.
This disclosure by the NCDC is contained in the information on its verified website on Sunday morning, which adds to the recent surge in infections driven by the spread of the Delta variant in the country.
The 650 new cases reported on Saturday was an increase from the 618 cases recorded the previous day in Nigeria adding that the 56 additional Covid-19 related deaths reported on Saturday also increased the country’s fatality figure to 2,361.
The agency, however, noted that the number of the country’s active coronavirus infections had dropped from 18,210, reported on Friday to 10,575, reported on Saturday.
It did not indicate if majority of the known active cases were from the contagious Delta variant or other variants of concern as stated by the World Health Organization (WHO).
According to the latest NCDC data, Lagos, which has been the epicentre of the pandemic in the country had the highest number of infections with 281 cases, followed by Ondo state with 95 infections, while Rivers had 80.
Others include Akwa Ibom with 59 cases, Oyo with 24 cases, Ekiti with 22 cases, Delta with 20 cases, Edo with 18 cases, Enugu with 15 cases, Bayelsa with 14 cases, Ogun with 11 cases, Kaduna with 8 cases, Plateau with 7 cases, Kano with 6 cases, the FCT with 5 cases, Gombe with 3 cases, and Abia with 2 cases.
It noted that Borno, Nasarawa and Sokoto states reported zero cases.
The NCDC added that over 2.7 million samples of the virus out of the nation’s roughly 200 million population were tested and 178,047 cases were treated with 8,232 discharged on Saturday, the highest number of cases discharged since the advent of the third wave of the pandemic.
It noted that the multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), activated at Level 2, continued to coordinate the national response activities.
As at Saturday, the public health agency also reported that the country’s total COVID-19 cases stood at 199,983 infections reported across the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
What you should know
- It can be recalled that in May 2021, the Federal Government reintroduced lockdown measures due to the outbreak of the Delta variant which has led to a surge in coronavirus infections across the globe and in the country.
- The government had also earlier in May announced that all data available in Nigeria indicate that the country is now in the third wave of the covid-19 pandemic amid the indefinite industrial action embarked upon by the resident doctors across the country.
