Nigeria crossed the 30,000 mark on Wednesday, with a total of 30,249 coronavirus infections now confirmed across the country.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced 460 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, while the fatality toll increased with another 15 deaths in the last 24 hours.
More than 100 patients have died of coronavirus complications in the past 14 day, bringing the country’s current total to 684 deaths.
According to the NCDC situation update for July 7, published on Wednesday, Taraba is the only state yet to record any COVID-19 death.
The number of recoveries has also increased to 12,373.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa exceeded 500,000, out of which more than 11,000 deaths have occurred.
A statement issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) noted that “Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa account for about 71% of COVID-19 cases”, while “South Africa alone accounts for 43% of the continent’s total cases.”
Speaking on the increase in the number of cases in the continent, Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO director for Africa, expressed concern about the effect of the pandemic on the health care system, but maintained that the situation can be effectively handled.
“With more than a third of countries in Africa doubling their cases over the past month, the threat of COVID-19 overwhelming fragile health systems on the continent is escalating,” Moeti was quoted as saying in the statement.
“So far the continent has avoided disaster and if countries continue to strengthen key public health measures such as testing, tracing contacts and isolating cases, we can slow down the spread of the virus to a manageable level.”