Coronavirus cases in Nigeria surpass 50,000

The number of people in Nigeria infected with the coronavirus exceeded 50,000 on Wednesday, the country’s health authority said, with 593 cases reported in the last 24 hours.

Wednesday’s tally, which would be the first time Nigeria is reporting over 500 cases in about a month, brings the total number of infections in the country to 50,488.

A total of 37,304 infected persons have recovered and have been discharged after treatment in the country’s 36 states and federal capital, Abuja.

Four deaths were recorded from the virus in the past 24 hours, pushing the total number of confirmed deaths from the virus to 985.

This was disclosed by the NCDC, the agency heading Nigeria’s national response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the deadly pneumonia-like disease that has spread to over 200 countries, infecting more than 22 million.

According to the NCDC data, there still over 12,000 active cases across the country.

The 593 new cases were reported from 16 states: Plateau (186), Lagos (172), FCT (62), Oyo (27), Delta (25), Rivers (20), Ondo (19), Edo (18), Kaduna (17), Enugu (12), Akwa Ibom (10), Ogun (7), Abia (6), Gombe (6), Kano (3) and Osun (3).

About a third of Nigeria’s cases (over 17,000) were recorded in Lagos, the country’s commercial capital. The second most affected place in Nigeria is Abuja, the capital city with 4,837 cases.

Nigeria is Africa’s third most impacted country behind only South Africa and Egypt.

More than a million infection and over 26,000 deaths have been reported in the entire African continent.

The World Health Organisation is worried by the community spread of the new coronavirus in a significant number of West African countries.

Majority of cases in Nigeria contracted the virus from unknown sources.

Nigeria has tested almost 360,000 of its 200 million population.