Nigeria on Tuesday recorded its highest daily Coronavirus (COVID-19) infections with 663 new cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 13,464.
This means that Nigerians should brace up for the era of high COVID-19 numbers as the health agencies and the State governments up the ante on vigorous test around the country.
Director General of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chike Ihekweazu, said in a meeting with the House of Representatives on Monday that it was unlikely that Nigeria has got to the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying it might be safer to say Nigeria was at the beginning of a major pandemic.
Dr Ihekweazu lamented that Nigeria had so far carried out “about 100,000 test, even though it has the capacity to carry out over 200,000 test per day at the moment.”
The NCDC boss added that the refusal of Nigerians to make themselves available for testing was partly responsible for the low number of testing.
He also alleged that some State governments were not cooperating with the agency in the testing process, stressing that it would be difficult to ascertain the level of infection in the country to allow for proper planning, if people were not tested.
Already, the figures for the top 10 COVID-19 States shows that Lagos has commanding lead with 5,895 infections, 944 treated and discharged and 72 dead. Kano follows with 1,004 infections, 477 discharged and 49 deaths. FCT has 986 infections, 270 discharged and 23 dead while Edo has 429 infections, 114 discharged and 24 dead. Katsina has 397 infections, 209 discharged and 21 dead.
Oyo is 287, 112 discharged and seven deaths. Rivers is 364, 152 and 21 deaths. Kaduna has 363, 201 discharged and 20 deaths. Ogun has 363, 186 discharged and 13 deaths. Borno has 356, 188 discharged and 26 dead.
The Nigeria Center For Disease Control (NCDC) said through its official Twitter handle that out of the total confirmed figures of 13,464 cases, 8,893 were active cases, 4,206 cases have been treated and discharged while 365 deaths were recorded in 35 States of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
According to the health agency, Lagos State continues its commanding lead as the epicentre of COVID-19 infections in the country with 170 cases, followed by Ogun (108) and Bauchi (69).
The NCDC data shows that Ebonyi State had 49 infections, Edo (33), Rivers (30), FCT (29), Jigawa (26), Delta (20), Anambra (17), Gombe (16), Kano (16), Imo (15), Abia (14), Borno (11), Oyo (11), Plateau (8), Kebbi (6), Kaduna (6) and Ondo (4).
Niger and Katsina had two cases each while Osun, Ekiti, Kwara and Nasarawa recorded one case each.
NCDC also said it has activated three additional laboratories in the country, bringing the total number of laboratories that could carry out PCR testing for Coronavirus disease in Nigeria to 33.
It announced that it is on track in its goal to rapidly scaling up laboratory testing for COVID-19 in Nigeria, meaning that the figures are bound to rise.