EHIME ALEX, Lagos
Coronavirus infectious cases in Nigeria stand at 12,801, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has reported.
The NCDC, late Monday on its official Twitter page, reported 315 new cases with 4040 discharged and 361 deaths.
A breakdown of the figure showed that Lagos, the epic-centre of the coronavirus, recorded 128 new infectious cases.
Followed, FCT, Rivers, Edo, Oyo, Kaduna and Gombe recorded 34, 32, 28, 22, 20 and 13 new cases in that order.
Others were Ogun, Plateau, Delta, Kwara, Kano, Bauchi and Katsina which recorded 8, 5, 7, 7, 5, 4, and 2 new cases respectively.
So far, Nigeria among a number of countries have begun easing their lockdowns.
However, there are concerns that if these measures are relaxed too quickly, COVID-19 cases could start increasing rapidly.
On Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged countries to press on with efforts to contains the virus.
“More than six months into the pandemic, this is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online briefing.
On Sunday, more than 136,000 new cases were reported worldwide, the most in a single day so far, Ghebreyesus said.
Nearly 75 per cent of the cases were reported from 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia.
In response to a question on China, WHO’s top emergencies expert, Dr Mike Ryan, said retrospective studies of how the outbreak has been addressed could wait, adding: “We need to focus now on what we are doing today to prevent second peaks.”
Ryan also said infections in central American countries including Guatemala were still on the rise, and that they were “complex” epidemics.
“I think this is a time of great concern,” he said, calling for strong government leadership and international support for the region.
Brazil is now one of the hotspots of the pandemic, with the second highest number of confirmed cases, behind only the United States, and a death toll that last week surpassed Italy’s.
After removing cumulative numbers for coronavirus deaths in Brazil from a national website, the Health Ministry sowed further confusion and controversy by releasing two contradictory sets of figures for the latest tally of infection cases and fatalities.
Ryan said Brazil’s data had been “extremely detailed” so far but stressed it was important for Brazilians to understand where the virus is and how to manage risk, and that the WHO hoped communication would be “consistent and transparent”.
Maria van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist, said that a “comprehensive approach” was essential in South America.
More than 7 million people have been reported infected with the coronavirus globally and over 400,000 have died.
“This is far from over,” van Kerkhove said.
At least half of Singapore’s newly discovered coronavirus cases show no symptoms, the co-head of the government’s virus taskforce told Reuters on Monday, reinforcing the city-state’s decision to ease lockdown restrictions very gradually.
Van Kerkhove said that many countries doing contact tracing had identified asymptomatic cases but were not finding that they caused further spread of the virus, adding: “It is very rare”.
Ryan, asked about technical cooperation with the United States after President Donald Trump’s announcement 10 days ago that it was terminating its relationship with the WHO, said the WHO relies heavily on experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
“We will continue to do that until we are otherwise instructed or informed,” he added.
(with additional report from Reuters)
DISCLAIMER
The OPINION / COLUMN is authored by independent contributors to the National Accord Newspaper. While contributors adhere to our editorial guidelines, they are not employed by the National Accord Newspaper. The perspectives and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of the National Accord Newspaper or its staff.