Nigeria on Saturday recorded its lowest daily infection and death toll since the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic last December.
The 341 new cases recorded on Saturday indicated a significant decrease from the 521 new cases reported about a week ago as the lowest daily figure this year.
Since the increase in infections officially declared the second wave of the pandemic last December, Nigeria had averaged over 1,000 cases daily.
But in the past one week, daily cases have fallen below 700 suggesting the country had gone past the worst phase of the viral infection.
The latest figure raised the infection toll to 155,417 in total.
This is according to an update by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Saturday night.
Three deaths were also recorded Saturday indicating a drop from the 11 fatalities recorded on Friday. The three deaths raised the death toll to 1,905 in total.
But health experts believe the official data under-reports both infections and deaths because of the country’s limited testing capacity.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has so far conducted test figures less than one per cent of the country’s 200 million population.
Recoveries
More than two-third of the over 155,000 people infected by COVID-19 in Nigeria have recovered after treatment.
According to NCDC, a total of 133,256 people have recovered after treatment.
Although people who recover from a viral infection often develop immunity against the same disease, it remains unclear whether this is the case with COVID-19 infection.
Meanwhile, over 20,000 infections are still active in the country.
Specifics
The 341 new cases were reported from 21 states – Lagos (96), Rivers (41), Kaduna (33), Edo (21), Osun (20), Akwa Ibom (17), FCT (17), Ondo (15), Gombe (11), Kano (11), Imo (10), Ekiti (9), Kebbi (9), Kwara (8), Oyo (8), Borno (6), Enugu (3), Plateau (3), Delta (1), Niger (1) and Ogun (1).
Lagos had the highest toll in Friday’s tally with 96 new cases followed by Rivers and Kaduna with 41 and 33 infections respectively.
Nigeria has conducted 1,489,103 tests so far
