NCDC confirms 1,883 new COVID-19 cases, total now 130,557

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reported 1,883 new infections of COVID-19 Saturday.

In a Twitter update via its verified handle, the government agency said there are now 130,557 confirmed cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus in Nigeria.

A total of 103,712 people it stated, have so far been discharged from hospital, while the number of deaths so far is 1,578.

As of Saturday, more than 102.2 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with 56.5 million of those considered recovered or resolved, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at just over 2.2 million.

In Africa, according to the CBC, Algeria launched its COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Saturday in the town where the country’s first case of infection with the coronavirus was confirmed last March.

A 65-year-old retiree got the first shot of Russia’s Sputnik-V vaccine at a hospital in the town of Blida. Vaccines will start being administered in all regions of the country on Sunday. The campaign is set to start with health-care workers, the elderly and other vulnerable populations.

Meanwhile, in Europe, France on Sunday will close its borders to all but essential travel to and from countries outside the European Union, while arrivals from within the bloc will have to show a negative COVID-19 test. Large shopping malls will be shut and police patrols increased to enforce a 6 pm curfew.

In Asia, members of a World Health Organization team in China investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic have visited another Wuhan hospital that treated early coronavirus patients.

The facility was one of the city’s first to deal with patients suffering from a then-unknown virus and is a key part of the epidemiological history of the disease.

In the Americas, Cuban authorities said they will tighten measures against the spread of COVID-19, requiring tourists and others who visit the island to isolate at their own expense for several days until tests for the novel coronavirus come back negative.

Cuba had eased restrictions in November, opening airports to tourists and others, but the number of infections detected has risen sharply so far this month.

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