COVID-19: Nigeria records 71 new infections, zero death

Nigeria on Tuesday reported zero COVID-19 deaths and 71 new infections in nine states.

The death toll from the disease in Nigeria has drastically reduced with only three fatalities recorded in nearly two weeks.

With no deaths on Tuesday, the fatality toll remains 2,061 in total.

This is according to an update published by Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Tuesday night.

The country has also had a steady run of low figures in the past one month.

Daily infections averaged over 1,000 between December 2020 and February 2021, during the peak of the pandemic.

The 71 new cases on Tuesday raised the total number of infections in the West African nation to 163,911.

Specifics

The 71 new cases were reported from nine states:

Lagos-30

Enugu-11
FCT-11
Akwa Ibom-8
Osun-5
Kaduna-4
Ebonyi-2
Rivers-2
Ekiti-1.

Since the pandemic broke out in Nigeria in February last year, the country has carried out over 1.8 million tests.

More than two-thirds of the over 163,000 people infected by COVID-19 in Nigeria have recovered after treatment.

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According to the NCDC, over 154,225 patients have recovered after treatment.

Meanwhile, nearly 8,000 infections are still active in the country.

Vaccination

Nigeria received nearly 4 million doses of coronavirus vaccine produced by Oxford-AstraZeneca through the WHO-led COVAX initiative on March 3rd.

It began the inoculation drive on March 5, and so far about a million people have been vaccinated, according to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency.

The current phase covers health workers and other frontline workers although Nigerians from other groups are also getting vaccinated.

Amid concerns over the efficacy of the vaccine, Faisal Shuaib, the head of the agency, said no Nigerian has developed any known severe side effects following the vaccination.

“What we have observed among some vaccines are mild side effects such as pain and swelling at the site of the vaccination, body pains and mild fever,” he told the weekly briefing of COVID-19 Presidential Task Force in the capital Abuja last Monday.