25th December, 2020
By Abankula
Six persons died of COVID-19 complications in Nigeria on Thursday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control(NCDC) reported.
Two persons each died in Plateau and Gombe. One person each died in Rivers and Abuja, taking the nation’s death toll to 1,241.
So far, 66 people have died in December of COVID-related causes, according to data published by NCDC.
By 1 December, the death toll was 1,176.
The new deaths was not the only grim news announced by NCDC as the second wave of the COVID-19 impacted Nigeria.
NCDC disclosed at an earlier briefing of a huge increase in the samples sent to the National Reference Laboratory in Abuja from several states and the FCT.
“This has led to an unusual delay with testing, but we’re working round the clock,’’ it said.
So far 912,114 samples have been tested.
New confirmed cases on Thursday were 1,041, the third highest figure in the month, after 1,145 on 17 December and 1,133 on 23 December.
And though 69,651 of the 81,963 confirmed cases have been discharged, the active cases have jumped to 11, 070.
Abuja with 10,689 confirmed cases has 3,727 active cases, the highest.
It is followed by Lagos with 2,954 active cases.
With cumulative 27,804 confirmed cases in Lagos, recovery appears faster than in Abuja.
While 34 percent of Abuja’s cases are still active, Lagos has about 10.6 percent.
Kaduna, now the second most affected state by COVID-19, is third with 687 active cases out of 4,792 confirmed cases.
Plateau has 443 active cases, Oyo 439.
On Thursday, the five centres, along with Gombe accounted for the bulk of 1,041 new cases of COVID-19.
According to the NCDC, the 1,041 new cases were reported from 23 states, with confirmed cases now 81,963.
Here is the breakdown:
Lagos-316
FCT-210
Kaduna-83
Plateau-70
Gombe-56
Oyo-56
Katsina-47
Nasarawa-35
Kano-33
Ogun-21
Rivers-17
Niger-14
Imo-14
Delta-12
Kwara-12
Edo-12
Benue-9
Anambra-8
Taraba-4
Ekiti-4
Ebonyi-6
Bayelsa-1
Sokoto-1