A total of 1,831 deaths have now been recorded from COVID-19 in Nigeria after 18 more people died on Saturday, health authorities have said.
The 18 deaths on Saturday indicated a significant increase from the eight fatalities recorded on Friday.
Nigeria also reported 645 new infections on Saturday, increasing the total number of known cases in the country to 151,553.
This is according to an update by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Saturday night.
Low testing figures in many states has limited Nigeria’s ability to determine the true extent of the spread of COVID-19.
A recent general fact sheet published by the NCDC showed that Kogi, Cross River and some other states were not conducting enough tests.
More than two-third of the over 151,000 people infected by COVID-19 in Nigeria have recovered after treatment.
The figure indicates the level of success the country’s health professionals have recorded in containing the virus.
According to NCDC data published Friday night, a total of 128,005 people have recovered after treatment
Although people who recover from a viral infection often develop immunity against the same disease, it remains unclear whether this is the case with COVID-19 infection.
Meanwhile, over 21,000 infections are still active in the country.
The 645 new cases were reported from 20 states – Lagos (282), Ogun (72), FCT (50), Kaduna (33), Osun (24), Imo (23), Abia (21), Borno (18), Oyo (17), Edo (15), Nasarawa (15), Taraba (14), Ekiti (11), Ondo (11), Plateau (11), Kano (10), Rivers (7), Delta (5), Bauchi (3), and Jigawa (3).
Lagos had the highest toll in Saturday’s tally with 282 new cases followed by Ogun and the FCT with 72 and 50 infections respectively.
Since the pandemic broke out in February last year, Nigeria has carried out over 1.3 million tests.
