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Nigeria Confirms 973 COVID Cases In Five Days As China Disputes Origin Probe

Nigeria confirmed 973 COVID-19 cases in five days, as Chinese authorities reputed a planned relaunch into the origin of the deadly disease.


LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – JANUARY 12: A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is displayed at UNLV on January 12, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada. UNLV officials established the vaccination center on campus yesterday and plan to open another one next week at College of Southern Nevada in Henderson, Nevada, to distribute about 1,000 doses a week at each location to the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) schools. The first vaccinations are going to front-line health care staff, including members of the UNLV medical, dental and nursing schools, people who see patients and university police officers. After that, plans are to vaccinate employees who work on campus, remaining NSHE staff and students living in on-campus housing, followed by the remaining student body and possibly the public. Ethan Miller/Getty Images/AFP Ethan Miller / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP
File photo:  A health worker prepares a dose to inoculate a woman with the Covaxin Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine at a school-turned-vaccination centre in New Delhi on May 5, 2021. Tauseef MUSTAFA / AFP

 

Nigeria confirmed 973 COVID-19 cases in five days, as Chinese authorities rejected a planned relaunch of a probe into the origins of the deadly disease.

Figures released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) showed that the country recorded one of its highest number of cases in months on Wednesday – 238.

A closer look at the figures also indicated that on Thursday, there were 184 infections in Nigeria with Lagos leading the way. The country’s commercial centre had 124 cases.

On Tuesday, there were 206; Monday’s number was 146 while 203 contracted COVID-19 on Sunday.

As of Friday morning, there were 170,306 confirmed coronavirus cases, 164,772 recoveries, and 2,130 deaths in Nigeria.

China Rejects Probe

File photo: Peter Daszak (C) and other members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic leave the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China’s central Hubei province on January 30, 2021. Hector RETAMAL / AFP

 

China on Thursday rejected a plan by the World Health Organization (WHO) for another probe into the origins of the virus including a hypothesis that the disease could have started from a Chinese laboratory.

The UN health agency had earlier this month proposed an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 including an audit of laboratories and markets in the Chinese city of Wuhan while calling for transparency from authorities in the Asian nation.

But the vice minister of the National Health Commission (NHC), Zeng Yixin, told reporters that China will not allow such a probe.

“We will not accept such an origins-tracing plan as it, in some aspects, disregards common sense and defies science,” he said.

He maintained that Chinese authorities could not share some data publicly due to privacy issues.

“We hope the WHO would seriously review the considerations and suggestions made by Chinese experts and truly treat the origin tracing of the COVID-19 virus as a scientific matter, and get rid of political interference,” Zeng insisted.