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Nigeria Confirms 453 New COVID-19 Cases, Six More Deaths

    Advertisement COVID-19 cases in Nigeria rose by 453 on Saturday, pushing the country’s total confirmed cases to 46,140. Six more deaths were recorded … Continue reading Nigeria Confirms 453 New COVID-19 Cases, Six More Deaths


Breakdown of COVID-19 cases in Nigeria by states and the FCT.

 

 

COVID-19 cases in Nigeria rose by 453 on Saturday, pushing the country’s total confirmed cases to 46,140. Six more deaths were recorded for the day, lifting the death toll from 936 to 942.

The new cases are spread across 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Data from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control showed that the FCT led new cases for the day with 75, followed closely by the country’s pandemic epicentre Lagos with 71 cases.

Benue witnessed a spike in cases with 53 new infections reported, Delta and Borno saw 39 and 30 cases respectively with Enugu recording 25 new cases.

Plateau State saw 24 more cases, Osun – 20, Abia – 19, Oyo -17, Kaduna 16, while Kano and Ebony confirmed 13 new cases each.

Other states with new cases are Ogun – 9, Kwara – 7, Ondo – 6, Gombe – 3,
Ekiti – 2, Akwa Ibom – 1,  Rivers – 1.

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to spread in the country despite efforts to stop it spread with death toll also edging up.

On Saturday, former Senator Buruji Kashamu joined the list of prominent Nigerians who have lost their lives to the pandemic. They including Mr Abba Kyari who until his death was the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari and former governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi.

READ ALSO: Former Senator, Buruji Kashamu Dies Of COVID-19

Despite the continued spread of the pandemic, the country has reported fewer cases in the month of August, compared to June and July when cases averaged more than 500 daily, exceeding 600 several times and hitting 745 on June 18.

The Government has extended a phase of eased lockdown by six weeks now. During that time, it has shortened a night curfew that initially lasted from 8 pm to 6 am by four hours. The curfew now lasts from 10 pm to 4 am.

Also, domestic flights have resumed and, this week, schools resumed for exit classes with churches and mosques reopening.

Concerns continue to be raised about the level of testing, however, as the country has tested less than 500,000 persons. As of Saturday night, 314,632 tests have been carried out.

Confirmed Cases by State

States Affected No. of Cases (Lab Confirmed) No. of Cases (on admission) No. Discharged No. of Deaths
Lagos 15,768 2,453 13,122 193
FCT 4,376 3,083 1,247 46
Oyo 2,860 1,427 1,402 31
Edo 2,376 185 2,095 96
Rivers 1,939 245 1,641 53
Kano 1,622 265 1,303 54
Delta 1,596 144 1,409 43
Kaduna 1,566 175 1,379 12
Ogun 1,439 181 1,234 24
Plateau 1,421 772 629 20
Ondo 1,284 502 754 28
Enugu 905 401 485 19
Ebonyi 851 32 793 26
Kwara 833 406 406 21
Katsina 746 265 457 24
Borno 682 78 569 35
Abia 644 122 517 5
Gombe 629 47 559 23
Osun 625 277 335 13
Bauchi 576 36 526 14
Imo 476 318 148 10
Benue 409 291 109 9
Nasarawa 367 136 223 8
Bayelsa 346 22 303 21
Jigawa 322 3 308 11
Akwa Ibom 235 30 197 8
Niger 226 49 165 12
Adamawa 185 87 86 12
Ekiti 161 83 76 2
Sokoto 154 0 138 16
Anambra 142 5 119 18
Kebbi 90 0 82 8
Zamfara 77 1 71 5
Taraba 72 13 55 4
Cross River 68 18 42 8
Yobe 67 2 57 8
Kogi 5 0 3 2

Africa’s Cases Tops One Million

COVID-19 cases in Africa have exceeded one million with hopes that the pandemic may be peaking in some countries mingled with fears of a second wave.

As of 1100 GMT on Friday, an AFP tally put total infections in nations across the continent at 1,011,495 infections with at least 22,115 deaths. Africa’s cases accounted for around five percent of global cases.

Just five countries – South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, and Ethiopia – account for 75% of all cases, says the continent’s health watchdog the Africa Centres for Diseases Control.

Some countries have recently seen declines of around 20 percent in daily cases but it is too early to confirm this as a trend, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

“African countries are doing their best, despite… limitations,” such as weak health systems, Mary Stephen of the WHO Africa office, told AFP Friday.

She, however, warned against the public complacency that can develop in prolonged outbreaks.

“Because we don’t see many people like we used to see in Italy, like 1,000 people dying (a day), people tend to relax, they think the risk is not so much in Africa”.

“We need to avoid complacency,” she said in a phone interview from Brazzaville.

Countries with high infections relative to the size of their populations include South Africa, Djibouti, Gabon, Cape Verde, and Sao Tome and Principe.  East African nations Rwanda and Uganda have managed to significantly slow down transmission, while Mauritius has flattened the curve.

South Africa tops Africa in terms of infections with more than 538,184 cases as of Friday. This is more than half of the continental caseload, and the fifth-biggest in the world.

Numbers of daily infections have slightly decreased in recent days to below 10,000 cases — compared to an average 12,000 during much of July.

A boy wears a face mask as a preventive measure against the spred of the COVID-19 coronavirus as he queues outside Makro in Soweto, Johannesburg, on March 24, 2020. MARCO LONGARI / AFP
A boy wears a face mask as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus as he queues outside Makro in Soweto, Johannesburg, on March 24, 2020. MARCO LONGARI / AFP

 

Egypt, which is the first African country to report a coronavirus case (February 14) has the continent’s second-highest number of cases at 95,006, including 4,630 deaths as of Friday.

Numbers of daily new infections have recently been falling steadily. From an average of 1,500 previously, new cases plunged below 200 this week.

An Egyptian man who recovered from Covid-19 donates blood at the National Blood Transfusion centre in Cairo on July 22, 2020. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP
An Egyptian man who recovered from Covid-19 donates blood at the National Blood Transfusion centre in Cairo on July 22, 2020. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP

 

A curfew imposed in March was lifted at the end of June.

Regular domestic and international air traffic resumed on July 1 and tourism, a key income generator for Egypt, is slowly picking up.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, follows Egypt with more than 45,000 cases and more than 930 deaths.

In June, the caseload rose each day by between 500 and 800 but the pace has dropped more recently to between 300 and 400.

 

A man wash hands with sanitiser as he arrives at a Mosque following reopening of Mosques and lifting of restrictions on religious gatherings by the government as part of a set of measures taken to curtail the spread of COVID-19 Coronavirus at the Secretariat Community Central Mosque, Alausa in Lagos, on August 7, 2020. PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP
A man washes his hands with sanitiser as he arrives at a Mosque following reopening of Mosques and lifting of restrictions on religious gatherings by the government at the Secretariat Community Central Mosque, Alausa in Lagos, on August 7, 2020. PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP

 

“New rise in cases are to be expected,” said the chief of the presidential task force on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha.

Nigeria carries out only 3,000 tests per day, about a tenth of the number in South Africa, which has a much smaller population of 58 million.

Algerians spent a bleak Eid-al-Adha festival under a strict lockdown that discouraged family visits and banned movement into or out of 29 of the country’s 48 wilayas (prefectures).

The nation is the fourth worst-hit in Africa in terms of infections — a surge in the past few weeks has brought the total to over 33,626.

A man waits outside the Sidi Mohamed tribunal in the Algerian capital Algiers where the trial of detained journalist Khaled Drareni began, on August 3, 2020. RYAD KRAMDI / AFP
A man waits outside the Sidi Mohamed tribunal in the Algerian capital Algiers half-wearing a mask on August 3, 2020. RYAD KRAMDI / AFP

 

Algeria has the continent’s third-highest number of fatalities at 1,273, after South Africa and Egypt.

The pandemic has taken a huge toll on the country’s economy, which is also impacted by the collapse in fossil-fuel prices.

Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country, has seen a sharp upward trend with infections doubling in less than three weeks in July.

It has so far recorded more than 20,900 cases and over 365 deaths.

Doctors in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) prepare to take care of patients infected by the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) at Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the makeshift hospital installed inside Millenium Hall, one of the country's largest event center, in Addis Ababa, on August 3, 2020. AMANUEL SILESHI / AFP
Doctors in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) prepare to take care of patients infected by the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) at Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the makeshift hospital installed inside Millenium Hall, one of the country’s largest event center, in Addis Ababa, on August 3, 2020.
AMANUEL SILESHI / AFP

 

The figures are small relative to a population of 110 million, but the WHO frets unrest sparked by the killing of a pop star from the Oromo ethnic group could further accelerate transmission.

The upward spiral is coinciding with mounting signs of virus fatigue.

Once-ubiquitous hand-washing stations are becoming scarcer, hitherto-empty restaurants are filling up, and even some health workers say they are struggling to maintain the same vigilance they had in March.

Around three-quarters of all COVID-19 cases in Ethiopia are in the capital Addis Ababa.