Nigeria’s COVID-19 Cases Now 17,735 As NCDC Confirms 469 Deaths
- Testing remains huge challenge
BY VICTOR OSOWOCHI, ABUJA – The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Wednesday night reported that with 587 new cases, the total number of confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Nigeria has risen to 17,735.
Capturing the figures on its official Twitter handle, the NCDC also said that in total, 5,967 patients have been treated and discharged while the fatality figure has moved to 469 deaths nationwide.
However, the NCDC Director General, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu again admitted that testing for COVID-19 remains one of the weakest parts of Nigeria’s response to combating the deadly pandemic.
On its latest update, the Centre announced the discharge of 344 patients from isolation centres across the country with 14 new deaths reported in the last 24 hours
It further explained that of the 587 new cases that came in from 18 states, Lagos State, the nation’s epicentre of the virus, reported 155 confirmed cases to take its total figure to 7,616 infections.
Others are: Edo state – 75, the Federal Capital Territory – 67, Rivers – 65, Oyo – 56, Delta – 50, Bayelsa – 25, Plateau – 18, Kaduna – 18, Enugu – 17, Borno – 12, Ogun – 12, Ondo – 7, Kwara – 4, Kano – 2, Gombe – 2, Sokoto – 1 and Kebbi – 1.
But giving details on efforts at containing the COVID-19 spread, the NCDC said testing remains the country’s ‘weakest response’ because states are not bringing in enough samples to test for the deadly virus.
According to its Director General, Dr Ihekweazu, the Centre has continued to engage widely and is currently working aggressively to increase capacity across the country towards meeting its ambitious target of testing two million people in three months.
Speaking in a Television interview programme on Wednesday, the NCDC boss said; “We are working very aggressively to increase the testing in Nigeria.
“This is one of the weakest parts of our response because we started from a very low base initially, but we have worked extremely hard to move from five to 35 laboratories right now with their ability to test for COVID-19.”
