By ABUJAH RACHEAL

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has recorded 394 new cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19), bringing the total number of infected people in the country to 159,646.

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

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that between March 1 and March 9, the country recorded fewer than 500 new COVID-19-related cases for the ninth time, except on March 4 when it registered 709 cases.

The NCDC, however, reported five COVID-19 deaths, taking total fatalities in the country to 1,993.

It stated that the new infections were registered in 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the last 24 hours.

The NCDC noted that most of the new cases recorded were found in Bauchi (75), Lagos (36), Akwa Ibom (33), FCT (32), Nasarawa (29) and Kaduna (26).

Others were in Rivers 25, Ogun 22, Oyo 21, Edo 20, Taraba 18, Imo and Ondo 17 each.

Borno recorded eight, Plateau seven, Zamfara four, Osun 3 and Kano 1.

The Nigeria public health institute said that 139,983 Nigerians had recovered from COVID-19, and these included 927 fresh recoveries.

The NCDC noted that the country’s active COVID-19 cases in Nigeria now stood at 17,670, down from the previous day’s 18,208.

The health agency said that a multi-sectoral national Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, had continued to coordinate the national response activities in the country.

Meanwhile, the NCDC disclosed that it would be carrying out a COVID-19 Household Seroprevalence Survey in Kano State and the FCT.

It noted that the survey in the two places would estimate the burden of COVID-19 infections.

The agency urged Nigerians that it did not matter if they had taken the COVID-19 vaccine, they still needed to adhere to Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention (NPIs) and other public health guidelines.

“This is very important, wear a mask, wash your hands regularly and observe physical distancing,” it advised.

Nigeria has tested 1,601,396 samples since the pandemic outbreak in the country last year. (NAN)

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