Nigeria on Friday recorded 575 new cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the country’s total caseload to 31,323.
This was revealed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in a tweet via its official handle.
According to the health agency, 224 new cases were reported in Lagos, 85 in Oyo, and 68 in the FCT.
Other states with new cases include Rivers (49), Kaduna (39), Edo (31), Enugu (30), Delta (11), Niger (10), Katsina (9), Ebonyi (5), Gombe (3), Jigawa (3), Plateau (2), Nassarawa (2), Borno (2), Kano (1), and Abia (1).
According to the NCDC, 12, 795 persons have now been successfully treated and discharged while 709 deaths have been recorded as a result of the virus.
Earlier on Friday, the World Health Organization said that it is still possible to bring coronavirus outbreaks under control, even though case numbers have more than doubled in the past six weeks.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the examples of Italy, Spain, South Korea and India’s biggest slum showed that however bad a outbreak was, the virus could still be reined in through aggressive action.
“In the last six weeks cases have more than doubled,” Tedros told a virtual press conference in Geneva.
However, “there are many examples from around the world that have shown that even if the outbreak is very intense, it can still be brought back under control,” said Tedros.
“And some of these examples are Italy, Spain and South Korea, and even in Dharavi — a densely packed area in the megacity of Mumbai — a strong focus on community engagement and the basics of testing, tracing, isolating and treating all those that are sick is key to breaking the chains of transmission and suppressing the virus.”
Meanwhile, the novel coronavirus has killed at least 556,140 people worldwide since the outbreak emerged in China late last year, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1900 GMT on Friday.
At least 12,361,580 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 6,593,400 are now considered recovered.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.
Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.
The United States is the worst-hit country with 133,542 deaths from 3,144,472 cases. At least 969,111 people have been declared recovered.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 69,184 deaths from 1,755,779 cases, the United Kingdom with 44,650 deaths from 288,133 cases, Italy with 34,938 deaths from 242,639 cases and Mexico with 33,526 deaths from 282,283 cases.
China — excluding Hong Kong and Macau — has to date declared 83,585 cases (4 new since Thursday), including 4,634 deaths and 78,609 recoveries.
Europe overall has 201,723 deaths from 2,803,100 cases, the United States and Canada 142,335 deaths from 3,251,493 infections, Latin America and the Caribbean 138,337 deaths from 3,186,561 cases, Asia 41,422 deaths from 1,658,293 cases, Middle East 19,555 deaths from 893,896 cases, Africa 12,633 deaths from 557,308 cases and Oceania 135 deaths from 10,929 cases.
There have been 5,112 new deaths logged since 1900 GMT on Thursday — Namibia notably announcing its first – and 224,319 new cases.
Belgium’s 84 deaths per 100,000 population is proportionately the highest ahead of 66 for the United Kingdom, 61 for Spain, 58 for Italy and 55 for Sweden.
As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies.
