By ABUJAH RACHEAL

The Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) reported zero COVID-19-related death for the ninth consecutive days as the nation’s fatality toll remains 2,061.

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

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the country last registered a COVID-19-related death on April 11.

It reports that aside from April 11, the number of reported deathsin week 14, which was April 6, was two from two states.

NAN reports that cumulatively since the outbreak began in week9, 2020, there have been reported 2,061 deathswith a case fatality rate (CFR) of 1.3 per cent.

NCDC saidit conducted 1,870,915 COVID-19 tests since Feb. 27, 2020, addingthat 120 infections were registered as at Tuesday, bringing the cumulative number of cases to 164,423.

It said that the additional infections were registered from seven states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“The breakdown of cases is as follows: Enugu-53, Lagos-22, Rivers-18, Ogun-8, FCT-7, Abia-6, Kano-6 and Bauchi-1.

“Today’s report includes data from Enugu recorded between April 14 and April 19,” it said.

The agency announced that another 22 people recovered from the virusin the last 24 hours, addingthat cumulatively 154,406 COVID-19 recoveries had been reported since Feb. 27, 2020.

It noted that a multi-sectoral National Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, has continued to coordinate the national response activities in the country.

The agency said it had continued to lead the national public health response to ensure that Nigerians were protected from the virus since the first case of the disease was confirmed in the country.

“Aside significant control of local transmission, one of the key areas of priority is institution of public health measures to prevent further importation and exportation of the virus.

“In addition to the already established and widely expanded network of public health laboratories, the NCDC has also optimised testing through enrolment and operationalisation of private testing laboratories for increased accessibility,” it said.

NCDC said this initiative had resulted in scaled up testing nationwide and efficient process in testing inbound and outbound travellers as they are mandated to test via private facilities.

It said this is in line with the national mandatory quarantine protocols and procedures.

The public health agency said the interventions had tremendously reduced the number of likely importation and exportation of cases.

It said, however, that trading and presentation of fake results at departure and arrival halls by some elements in some of the international airports has posed challenges recently.

“This poses significant danger particularly to travellers with genuine negative results, thereby resulting in further risk of exportation or importation of the disease,” it said.

The agency said to address the challenges and consolidate on the gains made, it launched a result verification system through the Presidential Task Force (PTF) and Ports Health Service Department of the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH).

It said the result verification system is aimed at validating the authenticity of COVID-19 results throughbuilding a platform for the verification of results andeffectively manage and monitor the network of private laboratories testing.

The agency said others wereto getaccurate and prompt testing dataand improve quality and efficiency of the laboratory testing network through analysing data generated from this Information system.

It said that an important outcome was training staff of the airlines and of all five international airports with capacity to verify results from outbound travelers via “QR Code and USSD” built on result verification system.

The agency said that this was in line with its mandate of ensuring national and global health security through prevention of importation and exportation of the virus.

It said that it would continue to employ evidence-based public health strategies and initiatives aimed at protecting Nigerians against COVID-19 and other epidemic-prone diseases.

NCDC, however, urged Nigeriansto ensure strict compliance with all recommended COVID-19 protocols, including travel guidelines. (NAN)