The third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is biting harder as Nigeria on Saturday recorded 49 deaths and almost a thousand (964) fresh cases.
The latest statistics from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) indicates a sharp increase in the figure of both the newly confirmed cases and fatalities when compared to what was recorded 24 hours earlier.
Nigeria had on Friday recorded seven deaths from the pandemic and 456 cases.
But this might not be unconnected to the backlog of data from Lagos, Nigeria’s COVID-19 epicentre, as the state failed to update its data on Friday. Thus Saturday’s statistics included Friday’s data from the state.
The NCDC noted in its update that Nigeria’s total fatality has now risen from 2,495 to 2,544.
The number of people that have tested positive to COVID-19 across Nigeria also increased to 195,052 with about 5 per cent (10,067) being active cases.
A breakdown of the NCDC data shows that Lagos reported a total of 456 cases while Ondo State came second with 180 cases. Edo and Rivers states reported 66 and 62 cases respectively.
Niger and Akwa Ibom states recorded 26 and 25 cases respectively, while Ekiti, Kwara and Oyo states reported 22 cases each.
Kaduna, Delta and Benue states recorded 17, 14 and 12 cases respectively while Gombe and Plateau states registered nine cases each.
The FCT also recorded eight cases, while Jigawa and Ogun states reported five and four cases respectively.
While Bayelsa and Nasarawa reported two cases each, Bauchi State reported a single case.
The disease centre also noted that Nigeria, with an estimated population of about 200 million, has only conducted about 2.8 million COVID-19 tests.
