Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) on Tuesday, recorded 148 new cases of Covid-19 across 16 states and FCT in the country with details as follows; 43-Lago, 32-Kano, 14-Zamfara, 10-FCT, 9-Katsina, 7-Taraba, 6-Borno, 6-Ogun, 5-Oyo, 3-Edo, 3-Kaduna, 3-Bauchi, 2-Adamawa, 2-Gombe, 1-Plateau, 1-Sokoto, 1-Kebbi. This brings the total number of confirmed cases in Nigeria to 2,950, With 481 recoveries and 98 deaths recorded.
Lagos remains the worst affected state in Nigeria with confirmed 1,226 cases, followed by Kano with 397 confirmed cases.
In Africa, total of 47,581 confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been recorded. 15,901 persons have recovered while 1,862 people have died of the virus.
South Africa remains the country with the largest number of confirmed cases in Africa. It has 7,220 cases of Covid-19, it has recorded 2,746 recoveries and 148 deaths.
It is closely followed by Egypt with 7,201 confirmed cases of Covid-19. The number of recoveries in Egypt stands at 1,730 while 452 persons have died.
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The Trial of BCG vaccine has commenced in South Africa, with 500 health workers. The aim is to test if the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis is also effective against Coronavirus. There has been some studies which show it could be an effective vaccine against Coronavirus, however it has not been proven.
Prof Andreas Diacon of Task, the clinical research organisation funding the study, told the AFP news agency, “South Africa does vaccinate all newborns with BCG. Re-vaccinating adults could help reduce the consequences of this pandemic,” He added that Children immunised with BCG tend to suffer less from respiratory illnesses including asthma.
Northern Africa remains the region with the highest number of confirmed cases at 17,800, followed by West Africa with 13,100 confirmed cases according to the African Center for Disease Control.
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In terms of testing, Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy is not conducting enough tests for Covid-19 when compared to other African countries. As at 21:56 GMT on Tuesday, Nigeria has tested a total of 19,512 samples for Covid-19 according to the data on NCDC website.
This is small when compared to South Africa with a total tests of 245,747 conducted. Ghana has tested a total of 117,049 samples for covid-19. Uganda and Rwanda have conducted 39,216 and 28,754 tests respectively according to Our World in data.
However, when these figures are compared to the figures from other countries around the world, the difference is clear. Italy and Germany have conducted 2.19 million and 2.5million tests respectively. Russia have conducted 4.3 million tests. India and Turkey have conducted 1.04 million and 1.17 million tests for Covid-19 respectively.
On the other hand, these figures are however dwarfed by the 7.05 million tests conducted by The U.S. The United States remains the worst affected country with 1,194,494 confirmed cases, 187,180 recoveries and 70,272 deaths recorded. Experts and analysts have said the large number of cases in The U.S, is due to inadequate testing at the beginning of the pandemic in the country in February.
On Tuesday, President Trump announced that the White House is planning to “wind down” the Coronavirus task force, despite the increasing number of cases in the country. He said that U.S need to plan for the economic recovery.
Many fear that this problem caused by inadequacy of testing in The U.S is likely to happen in Nigeria and Africa in general. Because the virus could be spreading undetected.
In a research, carried out on behalf of the Africa Centre of Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, shows that there is great difficulty in maintaining the strict lockdown policies in Africa.
The survey, which studied data from 20 African countries found that, over two-thirds of the people would run out of food and water if they had to stay at home for 14 days. Whereas more than half said they would run out of money.
United Kingdom (UK) has overtaken Italy, as the country with the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in Europe and second only to The U.S globally. UK has recorded 196,239 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 29,503 deaths. Whereas Italy has recorded 213,013 confirmed cases, 85,231 recoveries and 29,315 deaths. Recall that Italy was the first democratic country to issue a lockdown order globally. It has started easing the lockdown on Monday.
Around the world, there are 3,640,835 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed, with 1,186,730 recoveries and 255,096 deaths recorded, according to John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
148 new cases of #COVID19;
43-Lagos
32-Kano
14-Zamfara
10-FCT
9-Katsina
7-Taraba
6-Borno
6-Ogun
5-Oyo
3-Edo
3-Kaduna
3-Bauchi
2-Adamawa
2-Gombe
1-Plateau
1-Sokoto
1-Kebbi2950 confirmed cases of #COVID19 in Nigeria
Discharged: 481
Deaths: 98 pic.twitter.com/0WhwE3fe4V— NCDC (@NCDCgov) May 5, 2020
Written by
Ifunanya Ikueze
