Lagos leads as fresh COVID-19 cases surge in Nigeria

Nigeria’s commercial capital city of Lagos, is driving the latest COVID-19 surge as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed 332 new infections between June 25 and June 29.

The NCDC made this known Thursday, saying that Lagos had 251 cases, while Rivers state reported 50 cases.

 NCDC said that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and three other states contributed the remaining figure.

The Centre said that the latest cases have increased the country’s infections to 257,290, while the fatalities still stood at 3,144.

In its breakdown of the latest infections, NCDC showed that Lagos state had continued to maintain the first position with a huge gap in the country.

Of the 257,290 total cases recorded since the outbreak of the pandemic in Feb. 2020, Lagos State confirmed 100, 376 infections followed by the FCT and the Rivers with 28,759 and 16,811 respectively. It also stated that 3,917 people were currently down with the virus, while 250,229 people had been treated and discharged nationwide since the outbreak in 2020.

The agency said that FCT came third on the log with 21 infections.While Kano State in the North-west logged seven cases, Delta reported two and Oyo confirmed one respectively.

The Public Health Institute said that eight states, Bayelsa, Ekiti, Kaduna, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Plateau and Sokoto recorded zero cases.

In weeks 21 and 22, the number of samples tested in the country decreased to 15,347 from 28,118 reported in weeks 19 & 20. These were reported in 36 states and the FCT.

These were reported in nine states and the FCT and include a backlog of cases reported from Imo State.The country’s number of discharged cases, in weeks 21 & 22, also decreased to 47 from 66 in weeks 19 & 20.

 There was no death reported in the last two weeks.Cumulatively, since the outbreak began in Week 9, 2020, about 257,290 cases and 3,144 deaths have been reported giving a Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 1.2 per cent.