Seven more persons die as Nigeria records 727 fresh COVID-19 cases

Seven more persons have died from COVID-19 complications as Nigeria recorded 727 fresh cases on Thursday.

This was confirmed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in its infections update published on Friday.

The additional 727 COVID-19 infections, on Thursday, indicated an increase over the 559 cases reported on Wednesday.

NCDC attributed the surge to the third wave caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant and low vaccination rates across the country.

The NCDC noted that Nigeria’s COVID-19 cases had jumped to 197, 773 on Thursday.

To date, it said that 2,585 persons have died due to complications from the disease and that Thursday’s infections were confirmed in 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“The 727 new cases are reported from 18 states – Rivers (257), Lagos (157), Edo (85), Imo (63), FCT (33), Delta (28), Kaduna (27), Benue (17), Akwa Ibom (13) Ekiti (13), Taraba (12), Bayelsa (5), Kano (4), Ogun (4), Oyo (3), Abia, Nasarawa and Plateau reported two each respectively.

“Our today’s reports include; 12 positive cases for Taraba state are for Sept. 7. Cases for Edo state are backlogs from Sept., 7, Sept. 8 and Sept. 9.

“Zero cases were reported from Ondo, Osun and Sokoto States, “ it stated.

The NCDC said that the active coronavirus cases in Nigeria were 9,089, with a total of 182,597 cases successfully treated and discharged after recovery as of Sept. 9.

It said that over 2. 8 million samples of the virus out of the nation’s roughly 200 million population were tested as the multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), activated at Level 2, continued to coordinate the national response activities.