15 more people die from COVID-19 in Nigeria

Nigeria on Sunday recorded one if its highest daily fatality toll from COVID-19 with 15 people dying from the disease

A total of 1,435 have died from the disease in Nigeria, the country’s infectious disease agency, NCDC, announced Sunday night.

A total of 110,387 infections have now been reported across the nation with 1,444 new cases found in 21 states on Sunday.

This is coming barely a day after the global coronavirus death toll surpassed two million.

As countries begin to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine, experts anticipate there will be a reduction in mortality but there have been more deaths especially in countries where the second wave of the virus is spreading unrestrained.

Last Friday, Nigeria announced its deadliest day of the pandemic with 23 lives lost.

Last week, which is the third week of the new year, the country recorded 70 deaths, the weekly highest in the new year. The country also recorded 50 and 48 deaths in the first and second week of 2021 respectively.

In the past four weeks, there have been over 200 fatalities as a result of COVID-19 complications in Nigeria.

The rise in mortality shows that the second wave of the pandemic is deadlier than the first as more patients are symptomatic and require breathing support.

Akin Abayomi, the commissioner for health in Lagos State, the epicentre of the pandemic, had said the use of oxygen by COVID-19 patients in isolation centres across the state is on the increase this January.

The professor of medicine disclosed that the new strain ravaging the state and the country at large is deadlier than the previous variant.

“The reason for rise in fatalities is not far-fetched. When there are is a sharp rise in new cases, there will definitely be more deaths,” said Chikwe Ihekweazu, head of the NCDC.

Active cases in the country rose sharply from about 3,000 about two months ago to over 20,000 due to a rise in new infections.

Of the over 110,000 cases so far, 89,317 patients have been discharged from hospitals after treatment.

Specifics

The 1,598 new cases were reported from the following 21 states: Lagos-901 Plateau-136 Kaduna-57 FCT-54 Ebonyi-53 Akwa Ibom-52 Nasarawa-32 Osun-29 Ogun-28 Imo-16 Oyo-16 Edo-15 Kano-14 Rivers-10 Ekiti-7 Borno-6 Abia-5 Benue-4 Yobe-4 Kebbi-3 Anambra-2.

Lagos again led with 901 new cases on Sunday, more than half of the daily total. The commercial city is Nigeria’s coronavirus epicentre with a total of over 40,000 confirmed cases and over 270 deaths.

The Minister of State for Health, Mr Mamora, warned Nigerians against complacency in containing the COVID-19 pandemic as the much-awaited vaccines may not arrive the country as soon as expected.

The government said it is expecting to start receiving vaccines for the disease by the end of the month and that the vaccines will be administered in four phases.

So far, Nigeria has conducted over 1.1 million COVID-19 tests.