Nigeria is in the grip of a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and cases are on the rise.
Government figures on Wednesday showed that the daily rate of infections rose above 1,000 for the first time in over six months.
Figures also revealed that another 13 people died after testing positive for the virus, the highest daily death toll reported in at least two months.
This is according to an update by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Wednesday night.
The NCDC in the update posted on its Facebook page said 1, 149 infections were found in 14 states and the Federal Capital Territory FCT in the last 24 hours.
The last time a higher figure was recorded was in February 16 when 1, 572 was registered.
The 13 deaths on Wednesday raised the total number of fatalities in the country to 2,236.
Active Covid-19 cases in a country also battling one of its sharpest rise in cholera infections have jumped to 14, 619, data from the disease centre showed.
The NCDC update came as the strike by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) which has paralyzed critical activities in hospitals across the country clocked 17 days.
Resident doctors, medical school graduates training to become graduates are pivotal to frontline healthcare in Nigeria as they dominate the emergency wards in its hospitals.
The strike by the doctors is believed to be putting in a precarious situation Nigeria’s response to COVID-19 amid rising numbers coupled with the emergence of other infectious disease.
There has been a sharp increase in deaths since the doctors downed tools with 91 fatalities recorded in the past 17 days, according to a review of NCDC data. The figure is more than double of the 31 deaths the disease agency registered in the whole of July.
Breakdown
While there was no data from Lagos a day earlier, the commercial city, the disease’ epicentre accounted for more than Wednesday’s infection tally.
The city of over 20 million people registered 680 new infections out of the day’s 1,149.
It is not immediately clear if the latest data from Lagos includes figures from the previous day as this was not indicated in the NCDC update.
Meanwhile, Rivers state that had the highest daily figure on Tuesday came second on Wednesday with 157 cases.
Akwa-Ibom recorded 94 infections while Oyo accounted for 56.
Edo registered 36 cases and the FCT reported 34. Ogun state has 31, Ekiti recorded 20 and Delta accounted for 16.
Five infections were found Wednesday in Abia, Nassarawa and Osun states respectively.
Four was recorded in cross Rivers, Sokoto had two and Kano registered one infection, the lowest figure in the log.
Meanwhile, the response from Nigerian health officials in the fight against the pandemic yielded positive results as more than two-third of infected persons in the country have recovered after treatment.
Out of the over 184, 000 total cases, 167,738 have recovered and discharged from hospitals in Nigeria’s 36 states and the FCT.
Over 2.6million samples have been tested for COVID-19 in Nigeria, a country with an estimated 200 million population.
