By Adedapo Adesanya
Barely 12 hours after reporting 14 new cases of people testing positive for the COVID-19, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Wednesday night confirmed 23 additional cases of coronavirus, driving the total number to 174.
“Twenty-three new cases of #COVID19 have been reported in Nigeria; 9 in Lagos, 7 in the FCT, 5 in Akwa Ibom, 1 in Kaduna and 1 in Bauchi State,” NCDC said on Twitter on Wednesday night.
“As at 08:00 pm 1st April, there are 174 confirmed cases of #COVID19 reported in Nigeria. Nine have been discharged with two deaths,” the body wrote.
In a breakdown, out of the 174 confirmed cases, Lagos state has 91, FCT has 35, and Osun State has 14.
Others include Oyo with eight cases, Ogun, Kaduna and Edo have four cases each, while Bauchi has three. Enugu and Ekiti have two cases each.
Rivers and Benue states have recorded one case each, while Akwa-Ibom has five cases, all reported yesterday.
Earlier on Wednesday, 12 tests were announced to have come back as positive, bringing the total number of cases confirmed in a single day to 35, the highest so far since the first case was reported in the country on February 27, 2020.
As part of efforts to curtail the spread, President Muhammadu Buhari announced a lockdown of Lagos and Ogun States and Abuja from Monday night for two weeks.
There have been calls to Nigerians from many quarters to obey the order, as many have reportedly been sighted by Business Post observation team flouting the rule.
Modupe Gbadeyanka