Barely a day after the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed the country was now in the fourth wave of COVID-19 with over 500 per cent increase in infections across the country, Nigeria recorded 2,123 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, its highest ever daily infection since the outbreak of the virus in February 2020.
Wednesday’s figure released by NCDC was 755 higher than the 1,368 infections recorded on Tuesday. It was the first time Nigeria was experiencing a ballooning of its daily difference in new infections and a sharp increase in the number of fatalities as festive activities heighten across the country.
According to the NCDC figures, Lagos State, which remains the country’s epicentre of the infection, led the new infections table with 1,552 cases. It was followed by the FCT with 197 cases and Edo with 155 infections.
With the latest figure, the number of active COVID-19 cases in Nigeria stood at 12,547. This shows an increase of 3,039 when compared with the 9,508 active cases previously. NCDC stated also that four new COVID-19 deaths were recorded on Tuesday, taking the death toll to 2,989. Wednesday’s figure took Nigeria’s infection level to 227,378.
Delta State Commissioner of Health, Dr. Mordi Ononye, yesterday, said a total of 395 cases of Omicron variant were recorded in the state. Ononye said a total of 3,295 tests for the Omicron variant have been conducted since the spike of the virus, while 395 persons tested positive for the new variant.
Ononye urged residents in the state to comply with COVID-19 precautionary rules, saying that a single dose of vaccination cannot confer immunity on any individual. YESTERDAY, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) alongside the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) destroyed 1,066,214 expired doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. These were part of the 2,594,100 doses of vaccines received on October 11 and 29.
The batches of the vaccine destroyed got expired in November. They were destroyed at the Gosa dumping site, about 2km away from the Idu Railway Station in Abuja.
According to the Director-General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the decision to destroy the vaccines followed several testing processes that were conducted. She said it became necessary to destroy them to protect Nigerians from being harmed. On his part, the Executive Secretary of NPHCDA, Dr Faisal Shuaib, said the vaccines came with a short life span, some as short as two weeks to expiration. He described the situation as unfortunate.
He said while Nigeria appreciates the gesture of the donors, it was not in the interest of the country that vaccines with a short lifespan are sent to it through the Federal Government saved about $40 million from the various vaccine donations received.
Shuaib further disclosed that only about 10 million Nigerians have been vaccinated against COVID-19. He, however, expressed optimism that Nigeria will be able to meet its target of vaccinating 110 million Nigerians.
