On Tuesday, Nigeria recorded 749 new COVID-19 infections and three deaths across 19 of the country’s 36 states.
While the 749 new cases indicated a sharp increase from the 397 infections recorded on Monday, the three new deaths were lower than the seven in the previous 24 hours.
The country has now recorded 1,267 deaths from the virus, according to the country’s infectious disease outfit, NCDC.
In the past 11 days, there have been 55 recorded deaths from the coronavirus.
The NCDC in an update on its microsite Sunday night said the 749 new cases took the total figure in the country to 85,560.
Since early December, there has been a spike in coronavirus cases in Nigeria.
Health experts believe the lowering of guard on safety and the weak enforcement of protocols especially in the country’s major airports in Abuja and Lagos could be responsible for the development, warning that the situation could get worse if citizens keep violating safety protocols.
Active cases in the country rose sharply from about 3,000 in November to over 11,000 due to a rise in new infections.
Of the over 85,000 cases so far, 71,937 patients have been discharged from hospitals after treatment.
Specifics
The 749 new cases were reported from 19 states – Lagos (299), Plateau (131), Kaduna (83), FCT (74), Kwara (35), Sokoto (26), Edo (18), Kano (17), Katsina (16), Delta (11), Nasarawa (10), Ondo (9), Bauchi (9), Rivers (5), Akwa Ibom (3), Jigawa (1), Osun (1) and Ekiti (1).
Lagos led with 299 new cases on Tuesday The commercial city is Nigeria’s coronavirus epicentre with over 28,000 cases and more than about 240 deaths.
With the country into the second wave of the pandemic, federal authorities have ordered the reopening of all isolation and treatment centres in the country.
The Nigerian government has also reintroduced new restrictions to check the spread of the virus, including the closure of bars and nightclubs and limiting the number of people allowed in a public gathering.
Nigerian authorities say they are expecting to receive in January one of the vaccines developed globally for COVID-19 but evidence on the ground at the country’s National Strategic Cold Store suggest an exaggeration of the claims.
So far, Nigeria has conducted over 930,000 COVID-19 tests.
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