Nigeria has recorded 1,664 new infections of the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19), the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) disclosed on its website on Tuesday.
The health agency said the figure represented the highest number in a single day since the first index case was reported in Nigeria on Feb. 27, 2020, smashing the record of 1,354 infections recorded on Tuesday.
The figure also showed that the infection rate has continued to soar across the country, especially in Lagos State, which has remained the epicentre of the pandemic in Nigeria.
With the 1,664 newly infected people the NCDC put the total number of residents who had contracted the disease at 94,369.
The public health agency reported one additional new death in the past 24 hours.
The agency said that 22 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) recorded the new infections with Lagos State topping the list with 642 victims and the FCT coming second with 407 cases.
Plateau recorded 160 new cases, Kaduna State 83; Rivers 62; Adamawa 47 and Nasarawa had 38.
Others include Abia-29, Edo-28, Anambra-27, Niger-24, Ogun-24, Imo-15, Oyo-14, Kano-12, Osun-12, Borno-9, Delta-7, Enugu-7, Bauchi-5, Ekiti-5, Sokoto-5, and Jigawa-2
According to the NCDC, in the past 24 hours 697 victims had recovered from the disease.
“Our discharges today include 388 community recoveries in Lagos State, 261 in Kaduna State, 87 in Plateau State and 20 in Imo State managed in line with guidelines.” it said.
The public health agency has said that a multi-sectoral national Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) activated at Level 3, is coordinating response activities nationwide.
At present 17,070 active cases were being managed by the NCDC.
This figure is nearly three times above the in-patients capacity of government hospitals and reference facilities being used for the treatment of the coronavirus.
As a result, some categories of patients are reportedly being treated at home for lack of bed space.
The NCDC is facing a greater challenge in coping with tracing the contacts of the active cases, estimated to be above 100,000.
Nigeria’s testing capacity is still very low and restricted to only targeted high risk exposures and contacts of active cases and international travellers.
From Feb. 27, 2020 till date, only 980,046 samples of suspected infected people had been tested in a population of more than 200 million people.
Lagos, the FCT and Kaduna accounted for more than 70 per cent of the cases, with Lagos recording 250 deaths and the FCT 104.
Kogi had the least confirmed number of cases with only five and a fatality rate of about 50 per cent with two deaths and three survivors.
The country also approved 70 public, seven corporate and 32 commercial laboratories across the country with varying testing capacities.
