Nigeria has recorded 187
fresh cases of the coronavirus, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease
Control.
This is even as the Federal
Government called for more surveillance in the country to prevent a surge of
the virus.
In NCDC’s latest figures
released on Tuesday night, the new infections were recorded in 12 states of the
federation and the FCT. They are:
Lagos-74
Plateau-25
Rivers-25
Gombe-19
FCT-19
Osun-10
Kaduna-5
Borno-3
Ogun-2
Katsina-2
Nasarawa-1
Bayelsa-1
Edo-1
58,647 confirmed
49,937 discharged
1,111 deaths
Following this
development, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country now
stands at 58,647 with 49,937 successfully treated so far.
However, there was no fresh
case of death within the past 24 hours as those that have succumbed to the
virus is still 1,111.
‘Scale Up
Surveillance’
Worried of a possible spike in
the number of infections in Nigeria, the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire
called for more surveillance.
He made this call earlier
today during a briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Tuesday
in Abuja.
As business and schools begin
to open and as travels begin to pick up, we fear that we may have a surge in
the number of cases unless we scale up surveillance and review our response
plan to integrate new ways to deal with the disease,” he said.
“In line with this, the
Nigeria Institute of Medical Research has developed a molecular test for
COVID-19 that can give results in less than 40 minutes. It is the SARS-COV-2
Isothermal Molecular Assay (SIMA) which can be performed by low skilled
personnel with minimum training.
“This test which is ten times
cheaper than the PCR, can be deployed for point of care detection and
surveillance.
“The technique which was
developed by Dr. Chika Onwuamah will be deployed for use as soon as it is
validated by the relevant agencies of the Ministry for specificity and
Sensitivity.”
