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Nigeria reported a total of 3,912 COVID-19 cases yesterday and Ghana crossed into 4,012 to make the two countries epicentres of the disease in West Africa.
The latest cases showed a worrying trend that officials feared could mean most countries on the continent are losing the fight to curtail the pandemic.
Plateau State in central Nigeria recorded a leap from four cases in over three weeks to 10 cases in a single day making health managers worried that person to person infection within communities is fast on the rise.
In the last five weeks, the state had implemented series of measures including lockdown and restriction of movements for persons and goods. “But it would appear we are not any where near the peak,” said a senior health official in Jos, capital of Plateau State. “With more testing, cases ate bound to increase,” he added.
There is an active molecular lab for COVID-19 set up about four weeks back in the state. For now, it would appear only capital city of Jos account for all the cases. “With the measures in place, we hope the curtailment measures will slow the spread and effectively make it non-existent in many of the local government areas,” said another senior official to IT Edge News.
“If you have ramp up testing, cases will go up. Once you optimize testing, your graph will go up so Plateau cases may be an expected outcome,” said another expert.
Highlights by NCDC
- On the 8th of May 2020, 386 new confirmed cases and 10 deaths were recorded in Nigeria
- No new state has reported a case in the last 24 hours.
- Till date, 3912 cases have been confirmed, 679 cases have been discharged and 117 deaths have been recorded in 34 states and the Federal Capital Territory
- The 386 new cases are reported from 20 states- Lagos (176), Kano(65), Katsina (31), FCT(20), Borno (17), Bauchi(15), Nasarawa (14), Ogun(13), Plateau(10), Oyo(4), Sokoto(4), Rivers(4), Kaduna(3), Edo(2), Ebonyi(2), Ondo(2), Enugu(1), Imo(1), Gombe(1), Osun(1)
According to the latest figures published by Johns Hopkins University, 3,939,348 cases have been detected worldwide, with 274,934 deaths and 1,323,998 people now recovered.
Countries with top cases in sub-Sahara Africa
South Africa: 8,895 cases /
178 deaths
Ghana:
4,012 cases / 18 deaths
Nigeria: 3,912 cases / 117 deaths
A breakdown of the subregions shows Central Africa has 5, 200; Eastern Africa 5, 400; Southern Africa 9,500; Africa Western 14, 900; and Northern Africa 20,600.
Worldwide the confirmed cases are 3.94 million and 275, 000 deaths while 1.32 million are recorded as recovered. Africa has about 57,746 cases; 2,151 deaths and 19,351 recoveries.
