Chidi Samuel| Nigeria’s COVID-19 cases surge past 7000 marks as Lagos, Kano lead death toll
Nigeria’s coronavirus cases on Thursday climbed past the 7000 marks as 399 new infections were recoeded accross the country.
The Nigeria Centre for disease Control in a Tweet via its verified Twitter handle, said, Lagos, the epicentre of the pandemic in Nigeria, recorded 139 new cases of the virus. Kano, the second worst hit state recorded 28 new infections, the same with Oyo.
Edo recorded 25 new infections, Katsina 22, Kaduna 18, Jigawa 14, Yobe 13, Plateau 13, FCT 11, Gombe 8, Ogun 5, Bauchi 4, Nasarwa 4, Delta 3, Rivers and Adamawa recorded 1 case each.
The health agency further stated that 7016 news cases of the novel coronavirus has been confirmed in the country with 211 deaths and 1907 discharges.
The tweet read, ”339 new cases of #COVID19;
139-Lagos
28-Kano
28-Oyo
25-Edo
22-Katsina
18-Kaduna
14-Jigawa
13-Yobe
13-Plateau
11-FCT
8-Gombe
5-Ogun
4-Bauchi
4-Nasarawa
3-Delta
2-Ondo
1-Rivers
1-Adamawa
7016 cases of #COVID19 in Nigeria.”
Discharged: 1907
Deaths: 211
– Lagos, Kano lead as death toll hits 211
Lagos State, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in Nigeria, has recorded the most deaths of any state with 42 fatalities in total, as of May 21.
The southwestern state has recorded the highest number of cases in the country with 3093 cases.
Kano trails just behind Lagos with 38 fatalities, just as it trails behind as the state with the second highest number of recorded cases with 875 in total.
The highly contagious novel coronavirus which broke out in Whuhan province, China, last December has infected 5.11 million people globally with over 311,000 deaths and 1.89 million recoveries.
-NCDC reviews ‘Policy’ on discharge of patients
Meanwhile, the number of tests conducted on persons infected with coronavirus (COVID-19) before they are certified to have recovered from the disease has been reduced, the DG Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu has said.
Ihekweazu made the disclosure on Thursday while responding to some questions during an interview on Channels Television Sunrise Daily programme.
According to him, recovered COVID-19 patients are now discharged from the isolation centres after their first negative test.
He said, “So, the discharge criterion at the moment is a single negative test in Nigeria.”
“We used to do two negative tests – 48 hours apart – but because of challenges of bed space capacity, we reduced that to a single negative test then discharge the patient to another one week of home isolation … that’s the policy at the moment.”
The NCDC boss who reacted to the allegations that the health agency has refused to release some patients from its isolation facility after recovery, equally faulted claims he directed that COVID-19 patients should not be taken to isolation centres if they do not show symptoms of the disease.
According to the NCDC boss, the agency does not manage any patient but support clinicians in various states with guidelines, stressing that decisions on the management of COVID-19 cases were left for the state authorities to take.
On the duration of time infected patients stay at isolation centres, Dr Ihekweazu said, “The average duration of hospitalisation that we have found has been 10 to 11 days, although some have said that they have been discharged on the fourth day (a few people).
“There are also extremes that have stayed over 30 days; I think the longest that has been discharged in our record right now is about 38 days.”
“We have patients that have stayed longer than that and that number will change once they are discharged. The average duration of hospitalisation is 11 days to be precise.”
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