The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in Nigeria on Thursday as the nation reported a record number of new infections in one day.

In a late-night tweet, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said 1,964 new cases and seven deaths had been recorded across the country within 24 hours.

This brings the total number of recorded cases to 116,655, with 93,646 discharged cases and a total death toll of 1,485.

Lagos, the epicentre of the pandemic in Nigeria, reported 824 new cases while the FCT posted 246 infections.

Other regions with new cases include Plateau (166), Kaduna (128), Ogun (76), Nasarawa (74), Anambra (69), Edo (50), Rivers (45), Ondo (44), Niger (40), Oyo (38), Adamawa (35), Kano (31), Akwa Ibom (27), Gombe (19), Kwara (13), Ekiti (12), Delta (6), Kebbi (6), Bauchi (5), Ebonyi (4), Osun (3), and Zamfara (1).

The Nigeria Governor’s Forum, which had expressed alarm over the spread of the virus, on Thursday said it was setting up a team to advise on procurement and administration of COVID-19 vaccines.

According to NGF Chairman and Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, Nigeria is expected to take delivery of a tranche of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of February.

Global Update

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,075,698 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Thursday.

At least 96,825,840 cases have been registered.

These figures are based on daily tolls provided by health authorities in each country and excludes later re-evaluations by statistical organisations, as has happened in Russia, Spain and Britain.

On Wednesday, 17,502 new deaths and 674,124 new cases were recorded worldwide.

Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were the United States with 4,261 new deaths, followed by the United Kingdom with 1,820 and Mexico with 1,539.

The United States remains the worst-affected country with 406,162 deaths from 24,438,935 cases.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 212,831 deaths from 8,638,249 cases, India with 152,869 deaths from 10,610,883 cases, Mexico with 144,371 deaths from 1,688,944 cases, and the United Kingdom with 93,290 deaths from 3,505,754 cases.

The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Belgium with 178 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by the Czech Republic with 140, Italy 138 and Bosnia-Herzegovina 138.

Europe overall has 680,452 deaths from 31,318,790 cases, Latin America and the Caribbean 560,184 deaths from 17,709,669 infections, and the United States and Canada 424,583 deaths from 25,162,846 cases.

Asia has reported 233,109 deaths from 14,771,309 cases, the Middle East 94,664 deaths from 4,491,990 cases, Africa 81,761 deaths from 3,339,669 cases, and Oceania 945 deaths from 31,576 cases.

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of tests conducted has greatly increased while testing and reporting techniques have improved, leading to a rise in reported cases.

However the number of diagnosed cases is only a part of the real total number of infections as a significant number of less serious or asymptomatic cases always remain undetected.

As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies. (Channels TV)

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