Coronavirus: Nigeria’s Confirmed Cases Rise To 184

Coronavirus: Nigeria’s Confirmed Cases Rise To 184

Nigeria’s tally of Coronavirus (COVID-19) infections, on Thursday evening, increased to 184 as 10 new cases were announced by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

According to the new data released by NCDC, seven of the cases were reported in Lagos and three in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The total number of states which have reported at least a confirmed case of COVID-19 in Nigeria is still 12 and the FCT.

NCDC said as of 08:00 p.m. on April 2, there are 184 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

A total of 20 people have been discharged after recovering from the virus while two have died.

DETAILS

Nigeria has been grappling with containing the spread of the disease as the number of confirmed cases continues to increase. Lagos State still tops the chat with the highest cases in the country.

A breakdown of states where cases have been confirmed indicate that Lagos now has 98 cases, followed by FCT – 38, Osun -14, Oyo – 8, Akwa Ibom – 5, Ogun – 4, Edo- 4, Kaduna – 4, Bauchi – 3, Enugu – 2, and Ekiti – 2. Rivers and Benue have one case each.

Community transmission

As Nigeria struggles to combat the spread of the virus, the health minister, Osagie Ehanire, said Thursday that the nation is beginning to see early signs of community transmission of the virus.

Going by the global trajectory of the disease, Nigeria is expected to record more cases as health authorities have embarked on contact tracing to locate thousands of people who have come in contact with infected persons.

Mr Ehanire said “the lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and the FCT will be helpful as we continue to intensify efforts to detect and confirm cases of COVID19.

“With the expanded national case definition and addition of two new laboratories to test for COVID19 in Ibadan and Ebonyi States, the national testing capacity is now at 1,500 a day.

“I applaud all our health workers and emergency responders in this critical time,” he said.

Concerns

With the increasing cases in Africa, the World Health Organisation expressed concern that the spread of the virus is threatening fragile health systems on the continent.

WHO said infections are increasingly spreading not only between African countries but within different localities in the hardest-hit countries.

WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti said “case numbers are increasing exponentially in the African region.

“It took 16 days from the first confirmed case in the Region to reach 100 cases. It took a further 10 days to reach the first thousand. Three days after this, there were 2000 cases, and two days later we were at 3000,” she said.