By Olamide Francis
Nigeria has recorded its lowest COVID-19 daily infection toll since last December with 506 new cases.
However, while the new cases reduced, the death toll from the virus remained relatively high with 20 deaths recorded on Sunday and six deaths recorded the day before (Saturday).
This information is according to an update released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Sunday night. The 506 new cases indicated a significant decrease from the 1,588 new cases recorded in the previous 24 hours.
Found in 20 states, Sunday’s tally raised the total infection toll to 139,748.
The significant reduction in daily cases could be as a result of the low number of cases recorded in Nigeria’s COVID-19 hotspots, Lagos and Abuja. In Sunday’s tally, Ondo State had the highest number of cases with 90 new infections while Abuja and Lagos were far behind with 28 and 20 cases respectively.
Nigeria’s daily COVID-19 infections have averaged over 1,000 since the beginning of this year, indicating how fast the disease has spread compared to when the country recorded its first case of the virus in February last year.
The 506 new cases were reported from 20 states – Ondo (90), Kwara (89), Rivers (53), Borno (45), Gombe (32), FCT (28), Imo (26), Ogun (25), Lagos (22), Kaduna (14), Kano (14), Edo (13), Osun (11), Cross River (10), Yobe (9), Ekiti (7), Kebbi (6), Nasarawa (6), Oyo (5), and Jigawa (1) Of the over 139,000 cases recorded so far, a total of 113,525 patients have recovered across the country.
Meanwhile, there are nearly 25,000 patients still receiving treatments in isolation centres across the country.
Since the pandemic broke out in February last year, the country has carried out over 1.3 million tests.