By ABUJAH RACHEAL

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says the country now has 199, 333 COVID-19 infections as at Friday Aug. 27 across all the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

The Centre, who made the announcement on its verified website on Saturday morning, noted that the country logged in 618 additional COVID-19 infections on Friday, adding to the recent surge in infections driven by the spread of the Delta variant in the country.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 618 fresh cases reported on Friday was a drop from the 835 cases reported the previous day and that the fresh cases were reported from 15 states of the federation.

The Centre also reported 10 additional COVID-19 related deaths as at Aug. 27, 2021, which increased the nation’s fatalities to 2,308.

The Public Health agency noted that the number of the country’s active coronavirus infections had again risen to 18,210, an increase from 17, 210 reported on Wednesday.

The NCDC did not indicate if majority of the known active cases were from the contagious Delta variant, or other variants of concerns to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Centre stated that the fresh 618 cases were reported from across 15 states of the federation.

“Lagos state reported 312, a rise from the 217 cases of the previous day Thursday, Akwa Ibom recorded 89 fresh cases, a rise from the 11 cases it reported the previous day, while Edo posted 71 cases, a rise from the 45 cases of the previous day.

“Others were; 47 in Rivers, 20 each in Ekiti and Plateau, 15 in Delta, 13 in Kwara, 11 in the FCT, 8 in Osun, 4 in Oyo, 3 each In Ogun and Benue, 1 each in Gombe and Kaduna, respectively”, it stated.

The NCDC added that over 2.7 million samples of the virus out of the nation’s roughly 200 million population were tested, while 169,815 cases were successfully treated with 189 additional people discharged on Friday.

Meanwhile, the multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), activated at level 2, had continued to coordinate the national response activities, the NCDC said. (NAN)

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