News

BREAKING: Nigeria’s COVID-19 cases exceed 7,000, death toll 211

Published

5 years ago

May 22, 2020

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Thursday recorded 339 new cases of COVID-19 in the country, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 7,016.

The NCDC disclosed this on its twitter handle on Thursday night.

“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 total cases of #COVID19 in Nigeria

“Discharged: 1907

“Deaths: 211”

NCDC also announced that to limit transmission of the virus, the centre is training healthcare workers to practise standard care precautions at all times.

The health agency had on Wednesday said that sometimes, COVID-19 test results take longer than 96 hours due to sample transport and other logistics.

“While we work hard to reduce time between sample collection and result notification, please take preventive measures.

“Self-isolation is important,” it stated.

According to NCDC, the health agency does not own quarantine or treatment centres which are the responsibility of the state governments or relevant teaching hospital.

The NCDC said that it only provides guidance on set-up of standard isolation centres, national case management guidelines and training to health workers.

The agency on Wednesday said that since COVID-19 onset, it had proactively provided Nigerians with reliable information on what they know; also through its website- covid19.ncdc.gov.ng.

It called on the need for credible scientists in the country to support in dispelling rumours just like the early days of HIV.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government on Thursday, disclosed that it has spent at least N800 million in conducting 16,000 COVID-19 tests in the state.

The state’s Commissioner for Health, Professor. Akin Abayomi stated this, while briefing newsmen on COVID-19 weekly situation report, held in Press Centre, Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: Economy’ll go into recession — FG
Abayomi, while responding to questions from the newsmen, said each COVID-19 test cost between N40,000 to N50,000, while 16,000 tests have been conducted so far fully all expenses paid by the state government.

According to him, “We have so far performed 16,000 COVID-19 tests in Lagos, which is much higher than anywhere else in Nigeria.

“We are planning to test up to about 1,000 people per day very soon in the next month or two we are going to be ramping up our capacity to test.

“For now the government is providing testing free of charge and the government pays about N40,000 to N50,000 per test.

“But as we ramp up our testing we are going to try and use some means of subsidy for the test, either through insurance or through some contributions from donors or from development partners to help us to subsidize the test.

“For now the state government is providing COVID-19 testing free of charge and all citizens who need to be tested for COVID-19 either because they are not feeling well or had a close contact can get it done free of charge at any of our COVID-19 testing sites on the four laboratories,” the commissioner said

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 pic.twitter.com/tSmPZvB7gs
— NCDC (@NCDCgov) May 21, 2020