No death recorded as NCDC confirms 64 fresh COVID-19 cases

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed 64 new COVID-19 cases in four states and the federal capital territory.

The agency announced this on its Twitter handle on Monday night.

According to the breakdown, 34 were recorded in Lagos, 15 in FCT, 11 in Borno and two each in Taraba and Gombe.

No new death was recorded, while 16 persons were discharged, bringing the total number of recoveries to 255.

In exactly two months since Nigeria recorded its index case, a total of 1,337 cases have now been confirmed.

Earlier on Monday at the presidential task force on COVID-19 briefing, Olorunnibe Mamora, minister of state for health, had explained why there was an increase in the number of cases across the country.

“The rising number of cases is of concern to all but there is evidence of increasing in country community transmission which to a large extent is as a result of non-compliance with lockdown orders and other non-medical interventions and other presumptive source of exposure to infections,” he said.

He also said factors such as treatment of COVID-19 patients outside approved health facilities, “necessitated the active case finding strategy with the house to house and cluster testing which has contributed to increased case detection”.

In his response to a question on efforts to scale up testing capacity, especially in states that have not recorded any case, Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the NCDC, urged the affected states to submit more samples, as the current number of samples receive was not satisfactory.