Nigeria Records Highest Number Of New COVID-19 Cases Ever

Nigeria has recorded 1,867 new cases of COVID-19, making it the highest daily record in the country ever.

Of the new cases, Lagos recorded its highest ever with 713 new infections followed by Plateau and the FCT with 273 and 199 cases respectively.

117 cases were recorded in Kaduna, 79 in Oyo, 58 in Enugu, 53 in Ondo, 49 in Kano, 43 in Sokoto, 37 each in Ogun and Osun, 38 in Nasarawa, 28 in Rivers, 24 each in Benue, Delta and Niger, 18 in Gombe, 15 in Edo, 12 in Taraba, 10 in Bayelsa, nine in Ekiti, six in Borno, two in Zamfara and one in Jigawa.

The total case load of the country now stands at 107,345.

However, of the total cases, 84,535 persons have recovered and have been discharged from isolation centers.

1,413 have died from the virus.

As the world makes frantic efforts to curb the effects of the rising second wave of the coronavirus and with vaccines being mass-produced, the Federal Government has assured Nigerians that plans are underway to receive its own batch of vaccines.

In the first batch, about 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are expected, although it hasn’t been specified which type of jab would be used for the 10 million doses arriving in March.

It is also unclear whether the batch would be financed by the African Union (AU) or as part of COVAX, which links the World Health Organization (WHO) with private partners to work for pooled procurement and equitable distribution.

Meanwhile, the government says it hopes to vaccinate 40 per cent of the population in 2021.

Another concern that has been raised is the issue of fake vaccines allegely being circulated.

“There are reports of fake vaccines in Nigeria,” the Director-General of Nigeria’s National Agency for Food Drug and Administration Control (NAFDAC), Mojisola Adeyeye said during a virtual press conference on Friday.

“NAFDAC is pleading with the public to beware. No Covid Vaccines have been approved by NAFDAC,” she added. “Fake vaccines can cause COVID-like illnesses or other serious diseases that could kill.”