Nigeria recorded its highest daily toll on Thursday with 681 fresh COVID-19 cases confirmed in 17 states.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced this on its official Twitter handle,.
The centre said that as at June 11, Nigeria recorded a total of 14,554 cases with five deaths.
The agency said that no new state had reported a case in the last 24 hours.
NCDC said Lagos State reported more than half of the new cases with 345 infections with Rivers State a distant second with 51 new cases.
Other states with new infections include Ogun (48), Gombe (47), Oyo (36), Imo (31), Delta (28), Kano (23), Bauchi (18), Edo (12), Katsina (12), Kaduna (9), Anambra (7), Jigawa (5), Kebbi (4), Ondo (4), and Nasarawa (1).
The NCDC said that till date, 14,554 cases have been confirmed, 9673 active cases 4,494 cases have been treated and discharged and 387 deaths have been recorded in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The health agency will commence the usage of the GeneXpert machines to test for COVID-19 cases beginning from June 14.
“We are ready to do that GeneXpert labs in locations and will start functioning on June 14,” the body said.
GeneXpert machines, manufactured by the US-based firm, Cepheid, is one of the most widely-used TB diagnostic tools globally.
Nigeria currently has at least 400 GeneXpert instruments deployed in 399 health facilities across the country meant for tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis.
NCDC said that with the challenge of limited kits for COVID-19 testing in the country, some of these machines in each state will be re-configured for COVID-19 testing.
“Each of the GeneXpert instruments in the country has four-testing modules with testing capacity of about 24 samples per day.
“There are also available in the country two mobile laboratories equipped with two GeneXpert instruments each.
“These will be deployed as needed to support COVID-19 testing surge in target states,” NCDC stated.
The agency stated that it has been working hard over the last two weeks to distribute the cartridges to the first seven centres to train them to make sure they are ready and on June 14, they will start testing.
The NCDC, however, decried the poor turnout of test samples from the states across the country.
The body stated that though the available laboratories could test up to 10,000 samples per day, they were only working at about 10 to 20 per cent of their capacity.
“The labs are there, the samples are not coming in as sufficiently as we want. We have this weekend for every state to push harder,” it stated.
Meanwhile, Enugu State Ministry of Health has confirmed five fresh cases of COVID-19 in the state, out of which four are medical personnel.
Commissioner for Health, Dr. Obi Emmanuel Ikechukwu, in a statement on Thursday, disclosed that the cases are a 32-year-old female, who works as a cleaner in a private hospital.
Another 32-year-old female, who is a health worker in a private hospital in the state.
The third of the cases, he said, is a 33-year-old male, who is a medical doctor working in a private hospital in the state.
Fourth, a 35-year-old male, also a medical doctor in a private hospital in the state.
According to the commissioner,
“These four cases of health care worker infection are contacts of an earlier reported confirmed case.
“They had been part of the patient’s initial management before the state’s rapid response team was alerted.
“The fifth is a 43-year old male, who had been admitted as ill in one of the tertiary hospitals in the state and on a high index of suspicion; also the state team was contacted for the patient.”
He regretted that three COVID-19 patients died. “Unfortunately, also, the State Ministry of Health confirms a second and third deaths among the COVID-19 patients reported in Enugu. ”
Obi said that the second death was the other male case reported as having been admitted at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) with a severe underlying medical condition. He also died before he could be transferred to the state’s isolation and treatment centre.
“The third death is of a male COVID-19 patient who had been admitted at the ESUT Parklane Isolation and Treatment Centre, also with an underlying health condition,” he said.
The update on COVID-19 cases in Enugu, he said, “is that 35 cases have been reported, 16 cases are active, 16 cases have been discharged with three deaths”.
