Nigeria records 473 new COVID-19 cases, 4 deaths

By Abujah Racheal/Abuja

The Nigeria Centre For Disease Control (NCDC) has reported 473 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths for Saturday.

The confirmed cases in Nigeria have now risen to 177,615.

Lagos, Rivers and Akwa Ibom are major drivers of the new cases in the country, NCDC said.

Active cases are 9,948, with Lagos having about 70 percent of them, with 6,938 cases.

The other states with high active cases are Akwa Ibom with 949 cases and Rivers 392 cases.

Oyo follows with 372 cases and Abuja 171.

However, the new infections announced declined from the 565 cases recorded on Friday.

The NCDC said Saturday’s figures came from 12 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Lagos State continued to rank highest in its daily reports, with 324 infections.

Akwa-Ibom followed with 46 cases.Rivers registered 41

Others were the FCT (20), Ekiti (12), Osun (9), Oyo (9), Ogun (6), Bayelsa (3).

Anambra, Edo, Nasarawa and Plateau States registered one case each.

NCDC noted that Akwa Ibom is the second hardest-hit state with the Delta variant in the country.

The NCDC updated recoveries to 165,472, after 63 more people were discharged.

It noted that the number of active COVID-19 cases in Nigeria surpassed 9,000.

Four new deaths were recorded on Saturday.

This raised the death toll in the country to 2,185.

NCDC said the country has entered a new phase of the pandemic.

It said the country has a more complicated mix of cases than it had seen before.