By ABUJAH RACHEAL

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said the country recorded 582 new COVID-19 cases as of Sept. 1, bringing total infections to 193,013.

The NCDC said this via its official website on Thursday morning, adding that the recent surge was driven by the spread of the Delta variant in the country.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 582 fresh cases reported on Wednesday, indicate a decline from the 626 cases posted the previous day.

The Public health agency said the fresh cases were reported from 15 states and the FCT; Lagos 175, Rivers 124, Edo 60, Delta 57, Akwa Ibom 44, Anambra 25, Bayelsa 22, Gombe 19, Ekiti 12, the FCT 12, Kaduna 11, Kano 6, Benue 5, Plateau 5, Ogun 3 and Jigawa 2.

It stated that Wednesday’s report included: 20 backlog of cases reported for Delta from Aug. 29 (3), 30 (17), 31 (10) and Sept. 1, (27).

“22 backlog of cases were reported for Bayelsa State from Aug. 31 (8), and Sept. 1, (14), while 44 backlog of cases were reported for Akwa Ibom State from Aug. 31, (18) and Sept. 1 (16).

“8 backlog of deaths for Delta State from Aug. 18 to 31 and five states that reported zero cases are; Abia, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, and Sokoto,” the NCDC said.

It stated that on the day under review, 241 COVID-19 patients recovered and were discharged from various isolation centres across the country, while 11 persons died of complications from the virus.

It noted that so far, 179,000 recoveries and 2,480 deaths have been reported in the country.

The NCDC noted that the number of active coronavirus infections in the country had, however, increased from 11,203 reported on Tuesday to 11,533 on Wednesday.

The NCDC added that over 2. 7 million samples of the virus had been tested out of the nation’s roughly 200 million population.

The public health agency said the new infections had increased the country’s toll to 192, 431 cases.

With the rising cases of COVID-19 in the country, the NCDC encouraged Nigerians to take collective responsibility. “Wear a face mask properly to cover your nose and mouth in public.

“Wash your hands regularly with soap under running water and practice physical distancing.”

The NCDC also said a multi-sectoral national Emergency Operations Centre, activated at Level 2, had continued to coordinate the national response activities. (NAN)

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