Coronavirus: Nigeria records five deaths as infection toll crosses 180,000

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said five people died from the coronavirus disease in the country on Thursday.

The disease centre, in an update shared on its Facebook page late Thursday night, said the country’s fatality toll from the disease now stands at 2,200.

This is as additional 753 new infections were confirmed across 13 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

With the latest figure of confirmed cases, NCDC said Nigeria’s infection toll, since the index case was recorded more than a year ago, has reached 180,661. Of these, a total of 166,560 cases have been discharged after they were successfully managed at accredited healthcare centres nationwide.

However, almost 12,000 cases are still active in the country with many being managed at accredited isolation centres while others are under home care management.

Breakdown

Lagos State for the umpteenth time recorded the lion share of Nigeria’s daily tally on Thursday with 364 cases while Akwa Ibom State in the South-south region followed with 141 cases.

Oyo State, another state in the South-west like Lagos, recorded 74 infections to rank third on the chart while Rivers State in the South-south ranks 4th with 46 cases.

Abia State in the South-east recorded 38 cases while another South-western state – Ogun – registered 24 infections to be ranked 6th on the log.

A North-central state, Kwara, followed with 20 cases while the FCT, also in the North-central, recorded 12 infections to take the 8th position. Ekiti State’s 10 cases qualified the Southwestern state to be ranked 9th on the chart.

Meanwhile, Delta and Edo States in the South-south region closely followed Ekiti with nine and six cases to be ranked 10th and 11th on the log.

Plateau State in the North-Central recorded five cases to take the 12th position while Imo, another South-eastern state like Abia, recorded three cases to take 13th position.

Bayelsa State, also in South-south region like Edo, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Rivers states, recorded a single case to take the final position of 14.

The distribution of the official record has, therefore, indicated that two other geopolitical zones of the country’s six reported no cases on Thursday. The two regions are North-east and North-west.

The Nigerian government on Thursday took delivery of 177,600 doses of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines.

This is coming more than a week after the federal government received a little over 4 million doses of Moderna vaccines from the U.S. government.

The Johnson vaccines, received and stored at the country’s National Strategic Cold Store near the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, were secured by the federal government through the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), the African Union collaborative venture with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).

It is the first batch of an overall expected 29.8 million doses of the J&J vaccines through the AVAT arrangement.

The Nigerian government said it will commence the second phase of the vaccination process on Monday.

Almost four million people across the country have been vaccinated in the first phase of the inoculation campaign.