Nigeria on Thursday recorded eighth deaths from coronavirus disease thereby increasing the country’s death toll from the pandemic to 2,244.
Seven deaths were recorded in the country 24 hours earlier, an indication that the third wave of the disease is hitting the country harder than anticipated.
This is as the family of the late fiery lawyer and human rights activist, Gani Fawehinmi, disclosed on Wednesday that the first son of the family, Mohammed Fawehinmi, died of the deadly infection.
The younger Fawehinmi, also a lawyer and a chip off the old block, died at the age of 52, and was confined to wheelchair after he was reportedly involved in a ghastly accident in 2003.
Meanwhile, Nigeria recorded additional 674 new infections across 16 states and the Federal Capital Territory on Thursday.
The new infection figure, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), has increased the country’s infection toll to 185,267.
Breakdown
The data provided by the NCDC indicated that, as usual, Nigeria’s commercial hub city, Lagos, reported the highest daily tally of 355, and this was followed by 87 cases recorded in Rivers State.
The FCT ranked third with 38 cases while Ogun State recorded 33 to take the fourth slot and both Akwa Ibom and Oyo States reported 32 cases each.
Edo State recorded 22 while Ekiti State reported 20 with Kwara, Delta, Bayelsa and Gombe States recording 17, 12, eight and five cases respectively.
The duo of Kaduna and Osun States reported four cases each while both Enugu and Nasarawa States also reported two cases each. But Plateau State reported a single case to rank the state with the lowest infection figure on Thursday.
The disease centre noted that apart from 2,244 fatalities recorded, a total of 167,923 victims of the infection have been confirmed fit by physicians after they were down with the disease.
Vaccination campaign
Nigeria on Monday resumed the vaccination campaign against the pandemic with the flag-off of the second phase having received about 4 million doses of Moderna vaccines from the government of the United States of America.
The country also received another 177,600 doses of Johnson and Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines from the African Union (AU).
Also, on Tuesday, the country unveiled a total of 699,760 doses of oxford-astraZeneca coronavirus vaccines which were delivered through the COVAX facility, an initiative aimed at ensuring equitable distribution of vaccines globally.
The newly delivered Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines are part of the three million doses of vaccines donated to 11 African nations by the government of the United Kingdom.