Nigeria has recorded 550 new COVID-19 cases.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced this in a tweet on Tuesday night.
The new cases were recorded in 16 states and the FCT, with Lagos retaining the highest figure of 219 cases.
Other states are: Kaduna with 52 cases, Kwara with19, Kano and Rivers with 15 each, Sokoto with 10, Enugu with nine, Gombe with 8, Plateau and Osun with seven each, Anambra and Oyo with five each, Jigawa and Ogun with four each, Bauchi with two, Edo with one and the FCT with 168.
With the new cases, Nigeria’s COVID-19 cases have now reached 70,195.
However, 65,110 have recovered from the virus while 1,182 have died in the country.
This comes as the world continues to seek solutions to the virus.
Across much of the globe, COVID-19 infection rates are hitting record highs, with hospital intensive care units filling up and death tolls mounting.
A Breakthrough?
But a recent vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech appears to be bringing some fresh hope.
Last week, the companies announced that trials were ongoing and the vaccine had proven to be 90 per cent effective in preventing infections.
Amid the skepticism around the effectiveness of the vaccine, Britain (which has been one of the worst-affected countries in the world, with more than 61,000 deaths in the outbreak from 1.6 million cases), has become the first country to approve its use – raising hopes of a breakthrough in the pandemic, which has killed more than 1.5 million worldwide.
Earlier today, a 90-year-old British grandmother became the first person in a Western country to receive the approved vaccine.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spent days in intensive care with COVID-19 earlier this year, called it a “huge step forward in the UK’s fight against coronavirus”.
Also, the head of the state-run National Health Service in England, Simon Stevens, said it was a “decisive turning point” against the “greatest health challenge” since the NHS was founded in 1948.
