The fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic appears to have ended in Nigeria, as the country, on Saturday, recorded 29 new infections across three states of the federation.
The latest statistics released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Sunday, which indicates a significant decrease in the figure of newly confirmed cases, also confirmed that no death was recorded on Saturday.
This is coming after the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, announced the end of the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the state.
Statistics
The disease centre noted that the fatality toll remains at 3,124 since Friday, when it recorded one death.
The data shows that the infection toll has increased by 29 to 251,959, while the discharged cases stand at 225,946, with no backlog of discharged cases reported.
The breakdown of the data revealed that Lagos State, the epicentre of the disease, recorded 27 of the 29 new infections, while Kano in the North-west and Rivers State in the South-south reported a single case each.
NCDC also noted that four states: Anambra, Bauchi, Plateau and Sokoto reported that they recorded no cases on Saturday.
Fourth wave ends
Mr Abayomi on Saturday, announced the end of the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic, as the daily infection figure from the virus declines.
The health commissioner said there was a reduction in positivity rates of COVID-19 infection from 29.3 per cent recorded on December 21, to 1.9 per cent as of January 20.
According to him, bed capacity utilisation now stands at two per cent, and fatality rate stands at 0.71 per cent.
On December 7, 2021, the governor had alerted Nigerians of an impending fourth wave of the pandemic, blaming the development on the non-adherence to preventive measures by Nigerians.
NCDC also confirmed the fourth wave, a few weeks after, as the country recorded a 500 per cent increase in the number of confirmed cases within two weeks.
The director-general of the disease centre, Ifedayo Adefila, who announced the fourth wave in a statement, noted that the rise in infections was linked to both the Delta and Omicron variants of the rampaging virus.
According to Mr Adefila, the surge in infections, which began on December 9, continued to rise with the country recording over 7,500 cases within two weeks, while the number of active COVID-19 cases skyrocketed from 3,000 to over 9,000.
