By ABUJAH RACHEAL

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has recorded 1,588 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 139,242.

The NCDC disclosed this on its official Twitter handle on Saturday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that since the pandemic emerged in the country, number of tests conducted has 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.

NCDC said that the country had so far tested 1,302,410 people since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was recorded on Feb. 27, 2020.

The public health agency also registered additional six coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 1,647 in the country.

It said that the new infections were reported from 20 states, and Lagos, the country’s epicentre for the disease outbreak, leading the pack with 535.

Other states with new cases were, Anambra 218, Oyo 155, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) 150, Kano 124, Gombe 60, Kaduna 49, Ebonyi 48, Plateau 46, Akwa Ibom 39, Niger 37, Edo 33, Katsina 23, Rivers 18, Taraba 15, Nasarawa 14, Ogun 11, Delta 10, Ekiti 2 and Jigawa 2.

The health agency also disclosed that 918 people were successfully treated and had been discharged from various isolation center across the country, bringing the total number of recoveries to 112,557 in 36 states and the FCT.

It added that those discharged on Saturday included 498 community recoveries in Lagos State, 64 in Kano State and 54 in Plateau State, managed in line with its guidelines.

The NCDC said that a multi-sectoral national Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, is coordinating response activities nationwide.

NAN reports that as a result of corrections by the NCDC or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours might not correspond exactly to the previous day’s tallies. (NAN)

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