The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reported 1,430 new infections of COVID-19 Monday.
In a Twitter update via its verified handle, the government agency said there are now 122,996 confirmed cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus in Nigeria.
A total of 98,359 people it stated, have so far been discharged from hospital, while the number of deaths so far is 1,507.
As of Monday, more than 99.6 million cases of COVID-19 had been detected worldwide, with more than 54.9 million of those cases considered recovered or resolved, according to a database maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The global death toll stood at more than 2.1 million.
In Africa, the CBC reported, four Zimbabwean cabinet ministers have died of COVID-19, three within the past two weeks, highlighting a resurgence of the disease that is sweeping through the southern African country.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the coronavirus is reaping a “grim harvest” in the country.
“The pandemic has been indiscriminate. There are no spectators, adjudicators, no holier than thou. No supermen or superwomen. We are all exposed,” Mnangagwa said in a nationally televised address.
In Europe, AstraZeneca denied that its COVID-19 vaccine is not very effective for people over 65, after German media reports said officials fear the vaccine may not be approved in the European Union for use in the elderly.
German daily papers Handelsblatt and Bild said in separate reports the vaccine — co-developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University — had an efficacy of eight per cent or less than 10 per cent, respectively, in those over 65.
In a written response, AstraZeneca described the German media reports saying its COVID-19 vaccine was shown to have a very low efficacy in the elderly as “completely incorrect.”
In the Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong has formally approved use of the Fosun Pharma-BioNTech vaccine, the city government said on Monday, the first COVID-19 vaccine to be accepted in the Asian financial hub.
Hong Kong has secured a total of 22.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from Fosun Pharma-BioNTech, China’s Sinovac Biotech and Oxford-AstraZeneca, the city’s leader Carrie Lam said in December.
In China, a vaccination programme for emergency use started in July with products from domestic manufacturers Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech. The program was widened in December to focus on additional priority groups including employees in the cold-chain industry, transportation sector and fresh food markets.
Thailand on Monday discovered a record 914 new cases of the coronavirus, all in Samut Sakhon province near Bangkok where a major outbreak began in December. The new cases shot the national total past 14,000.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador worked from isolation Monday, a day after announcing that he tested positive for COVID-19, and was absent from his daily news conference for the first time in his two years in office.
The president, who has rarely been seen wearing a mask, stayed out of sight as his country topped 150,000 deaths, the fourth-highest level in the world. He has been criticized for his handling of Mexico’s pandemic and for not setting an example of prevention in public.
