The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported 29 new cases of COVID-19 infections recorded across five states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
This is coming as the World Health Organization (WHO) has advised all the countries to continue to adhere to COVID-19 protocol on the use of facemasks by the public, irrespective of the local epidemiological situation.
NCDC in an update released at the weekend, noted that the latest report represented cumulative data for cases recorded in one week, from January 7 to 13.
The report showed that while the fatality toll remained 3,155, the newly confirmed cases have increased the country’s cases to 259,858.
As of January 10, Nigeria had tested 5,708,974 samples and discharged 259,850 patients, according to the NCDC Director-General, Ifedayo Adetifa, who confirmed at a press conference in Abuja that the centre was on red alert ,following the global concerns about new strains of the pandemic.
The disease control centre had recently warned about the resurgence of coronavirus in China and the increase in hospitalisation and death in the UK and the USA, driven by the usual winter exacerbations of respiratory illnesses.
The disease control centre reported that countries such as China, the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), South Africa and India, were battling with the rise in Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant and its lineages, which dominated recorded infections worldwide.
NCDC, however, said the sub-lineages partly responsible for the current increase in COVID-19 cases in these countries (XBB.1.5 and BF.7) had not yet been detected in Nigeria, noting that “the B.5.2.1 has been seen since July 2022 and the others are most likely here already.”
It further noted that since the detection of the Omicron variant in December 2021, its sub-lineage (BQ.1/BQ.1.1) has dominant in Nigeria, but “none of these dominant sub-lineages in Nigeria that are also circulating elsewhere has been associated with any increases in case numbers, admissions, or deaths locally.”
The breakdown of the NCDC data shows that the new cases of COVID in Nigeria showed that Lagos State, the epicentre of the disease in the country, topped with 15 infections, followed by the FCT and Kwara State with five and four cases, respectively. While Nasarawa State recorded three infections, Kaduna and Plateau states recorded one case each
