COVID-19: Cases In Nigeria Rise By 45 Percent In Nine Days

Within the past 9 days, COVID-19 cases in Nigeria have risen by 45 per cent. This weekend, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) website showed figures stating that cases rose from 182 cases on the 1st of April 2022 to 265 cases on the 9th of April. Nigeria has since recorded 255, 871 cases including the 265 newly infected individuals. There have been 3,142 fatalities as of April 8.

This surge, however, cannot be considered unusual to Nigeria at all. The current data obtained from the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that 1,138,093 new cases had been reported worldwide on the 8th of August. Approximately, the global cases from the 8th of April 8 were 494,587,638 cases with 6,170,283 deaths.

The Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) on COVID-19 had last week given an evaluation of Nigeria’s response to the pandemic considering the declining number of cases in the country. The PSC mentioned that the decision had also been due to the availability of vaccines as well as the increasing number of people that were vaccinated in Nigeria and globally. They, however, pleaded with Nigerians to strictly adhere to the preventive measures, which includes going for testing whenever they show symptoms of COVID-19 such as fever, cough, tiredness, loss of taste or smell, difficulty in breathing, sore throat, among others.

The PSC also encouraged citizens to continue to wash their hands with soap under flowing water and use hand sanitisers, properly wear facemasks, practice social distancing, avoid large gatherings, and get vaccinated against the disease at designated centres nationwide.

The WHO data on the global rise in COVID-19 further showed that between March 28 and April 4 Europe recorded 2,676,481 new infections; Americas, 344,968; South-East Asia, 143,111; Western Pacific, 2,150,428; Eastern Mediterranean, 29,533; and Africa, 20,432. It said that the United States had 130,845 new infections in seven days; India, 4,936; Brazil, 92,084; France, 640,581; Germany, 813,503; United Kingdom, 206,586; Russia, 72,565; Italy, 315,260; Korea, 1,109,478; Turkey, 53,549; Spain, 17,682; and Vietnam, 354,410.

The data had disclosed that an estimated 65 per cent of Africans have been infected by COVID-19. It also added that the true infections on the continent were 97 times larger than reported confirmed cases. Based on the numbers, WHO has urged countries to ramp up testing, contact tracing, surveillance and increase vaccination coverage.