The confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Nigeria rose by 226 on Tuesday according to Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC). The new cases were recorded in 15 states and FCT as follows: 131-Lagos, 25-Ogun, 15-Plateau, 11-Edo, 7-Kaduna, 6-Oyo, 5-FCT, 5-Adamawa, 4-Jigawa, 4-Ebonyi, 4-Borno, 3-Nasarawa, 2-Bauchi, 2-Gombe, 1-Enugu, and 1-Bayelsa
This brings the total number of confirmed cases to 6,401 in Nigeria out of which 1,734 have been discharged and 192 deaths recorded as at 19 May 2020.
According to the situation report released by NCDC on Monday 18 May 2020, the details of the 6,175 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Nigeria are as follows;
Out of 6,175 cases, 4,276 are male which represents 69% while 1,899 are female which represents 31%.
The most affected age group is 31 – 40 years at 24% of the total cases.
The Provenance of the cases are as follows according to the report by NCDC;
Only 3% (210) of the total cases have travel history. Contacts of an existing case make up 24% (1,472) of the total cases.
61% of the cases have no epidemiological link. This means that 3,736 cases of Covid-19 in Nigeria as at 18 May 2020 cannot be traced to an existing patient. Thus, it implies that community transmission is prevalent in the country.
On the other hand, the provenance of 757 cases which represents 12% of the total is incomplete.
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About 62% of all Covid-19 tests conducted in Nigeria is across 3 states, namely Lagos-14,886, FCT-4,688, and Kano-2,653 according to the report.
Total of 720 tests have been conducted in the South East region: Ebonyi-176, Imo-184, Enugu-140, Abia-119 and Anambra-101 according to the NCDC report.
The table below shows the number of tests conducted per state.
In River State, the saga which started on 7 April 2020 between the state government and Caverton Offshore Support Group Plc has come to an end. The state government made this known on Tuesday in a statement through its Commissioner of Information and Communications, Paulinus Msirim.
According to the statement “The Rivers State Government through the Honourable Attorney-General has withdrawn and discontinued the two separate charges ( PMC/532C/2020 and PMC/533C/2020) preferred against the two pilots of Caverton Helicopters Ltd and the 10 passengers on board before the Port Harcourt Chief Magistrates’ Court.
”Consequently, the presiding Chief Magistrate, D. D Ihua-Maduenyi has struck out the two charges and discharged all the defendants.”
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In Abuja, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on the containment of the Covid-19 on Tuesday, said the following with respect to the alleged deportation of Nigerian students from Malaysia.
“I don’t know the reasons for such deportation. We have not in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs got such information. Ordinarily, if such a thing were to happen or to be considered, our mission would have informed us in respect of that.
“But the global practice at the moment is that every country knows that the airspace has been closed all around the world and that people in those countries through no fault of their own might be forced to overstay the duration of their visas.”
“So, it is not the practice at the moment for government to unilaterally embark on issues of deportation. That is certainly not how the matter will be dealt with if indeed that is the case with Malaysia. But we will get in touch to ascertain if that story is true,” the Minister added.
In Rwanda, 5 humanoid robots manufactured in Belgium have been delivered to the country. According to Rwanda’s Health Minister Daniel Ngamije, the aim of deploying the robots is to reduce the exposure of health workers to Covid-19.
The robots will conduct screening for Covid-19, deliver food and drugs to the patients and act as interface between the patients and the doctors.
Rwanda has recorded 297 cases of Covid-19 with 209 recoveries and zero deaths.
In South Sudan, the Vice President Riek Machar and his wife Angelina Teny, who is also the country’s Defence Minister have tested positive for Covid-19.
He is also a member of the country’s task force for the fight against Covid-19. Several other members of the task force have tested positive for the virus.
South Sudan has confirmed 285 cases of Covid-19, 4 recoveries and 6 deaths according to Africa Center for Disease Control.
In Africa total of 88,172 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed, with 33,863 recoveries and 2,834 deaths recorded. The Northern region still hold the highest number of confirmed cases with over 28,000 recorded.
It is followed by the West Africa with more than 24,000 recorded cases and Southern Region with over 17,000 confirmed cases of the virus according to Africa CDC.
In Brazil the number of confirmed new cases continue to soar, with over 27,000 new cases in 2 days. Brazil has passed UK to become the third country with the largest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 behind US and Russia.
Brazil has recorded 262,454 cases of Covid-19 with 17,509 deaths.
In other development, Trumps Criticism of the World Health Organization went a step furthers on Monday, telling the agency in a letter that he will permanently pull US funding if it does not “commit to major substantive improvements in the next 30 days.”.
The agency has been criticized for it’s handling of the Coronavirus outbreak.
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President Trump wrote in a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that he posted on Twitter late Monday, “It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world. The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China,”.
“My administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organization. But action is needed quickly. We do not have time to waste,” Trump concluded, adding that the US will “reconsider our membership” unless improvements are made.
The U.S is the major fund provider for the WHO, contributing over $400 million dollars to the organization while China the second largest by country contributes about $40 million.
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The U.S has confirmed 1,520,029 cases of Covid-19 with 283,178 recoveries and 91,187 deaths. It remains the worst affected country in the world, followed by Russia with 299,941 cases 2,837 deaths recorded.
The global cases stands at 4,872,308 with 1,671,375 recoveries and 321,593 deaths recorded according to John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center as at 22:56 GMT on Tuesday.
Written by
Ifunanya Ikueze
