Daily COVID Tracker: Infections take a leap as NCDC reports 159 cases in eight states

Nigeria on Thursday recorded 159 cases of COVID-19. Here are five updates about the pandemic this Friday. 

NAFDAC approves Sputnik V, Moderna vaccines for use

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved Moderna and Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use in Nigeria.

Mojisola Adeyeye, NAFDAC director-general, disclosed this on Thursday at a news conference in Abuja.

Moderna vaccine is made by Rovi Pharma Madrid in Spain while Sputnik V is produced by Gamaleya National Centre of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russia.

The approval brings to five the number of COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in Nigeria by the agency  — after AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson were authorised in February, April and May respectively.

WHO to carryout follow-up study into COVID-19 origins

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), will share a roadmap on investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

Mike Ryan, WHO emergency director, disclosed this at a media conference on Thursday.

“We look forward to working with our Chinese counterparts on that process and the director-general will outline measures to member states,” he said.

White House tackles Facebook over spread of COVID misinformation on its platform

Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, has tackled Facebook over the spread of misinformation on COVID-19 on its platform.

Psaki said the social media giant needs to do more to flush out fake information from its platform.

Psaki cited a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, saying 12 people were responsible for peddling about 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.

“All of them remain active on Facebook,” she said, adding that Facebook “needs to move more quickly to remove harmful violative posts”.

However, Facebook said it is working hard to rid its platform of fake news about COVID.

“So far we’ve removed more than 18 million pieces of COVID misinformation, removed accounts that repeatedly break these rules, and connected more than 2 billion people to reliable information about COVID-19 and COVID vaccines across our apps,” a spokesperson said.

Inadequate COVID vaccines for developing countries affecting HIV patients

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) says limited access to COVID-19 vaccines for developing countries will have a negative impact on people living with HIV.

UNAIDS disclosed this in a report titled, ‘Confronting Inequalities: Lessons for Pandemic Responses from 40 Years of AIDS’, which was released on Wednesday.

According to the report, developing countries have been at a disadvantage on access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Nigeria records 159 COVID cases

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed 159 COVID-19 cases across seven states and the federal capital territory (FCT) on Thursday.

Lagos recorded 119 positive samples — representing 74.84 percent out of the 159 cases reported.

Other states that recorded infections include Akwa Ibom (19), Rivers (11), Ogun (5), Ekiti (2), FCT (1), Delta, (1), and Kwara (1).

The agency, however, said Lagos data include cases from Wednesday.

Thursday’s report had a low number of recoveries which stood at 10, while one death was recorded.

Nigeria has 169,074 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 164,662 discharged patients, and 2,126 deaths.