The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reported of 1,964 new infections of COVID-19 Thursday, a new record.
In a Twitter update via its verified handle, the government agency said there are now 116,655 confirmed cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus in Nigeria.
A total of 96,646 people it stated, have so far been discharged from hospital, while the number of deaths so far is 1,485.
As of Thursday, more than 97.2 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, with more than 53.4 million of the cases considered recovered, according to a tracking tool maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than two million.
CBC reports that the director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says access to medical oxygen is a “huge, huge critical need” across the continent as Africa’s case fatality rate from COVID-19 is now above the global average and health centres are overwhelmed.
John Nkengasong said the case fatality rate across the African continent is 2.5 per cent while the global average is 2.2 per cent. And while confirmed coronavirus cases in the past week across Africa dropped by seven per cent, deaths rose by 10 per cent.
“It’s beginning to be very worrying,” Nkengasong told reporters Thursday. He noted that a Nigerian colleague has said struggling health workers are having to decide which cases to manage and which not to manage in Africa’s most populous country. Twenty-one of Africa’s more than 50 countries have case fatality rates above the global average, led by Sudan at 6.2 per cent. The continent has seen more than 6,000 deaths in the past week, with more than 81,000 overall. Africa has had more than 3.3 million confirmed virus cases. Almost all African countries are still waiting for COVID-19 vaccines.