The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Nigeria hit the 10,000 mark on Sunday, May 31, 2020, three months after the country recorded its first confirmed COVID-19 case, and keep increasing by the day, with experts calling for more commitment towards flattening the curve.
The federal and state governments have eased restrictions as citizens now have access to places of worship and markets with the caveat to observe some safety protocols.
As of Tuesday, June 2, 2020, Nigeria recorded 10,819 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Out of this, 3,239 cases have been discharged, with 314 deaths recorded.
The number of samples tested so far since the outbreak of the virus in the country stands at 65,885, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
The country also recorded its highest daily case on Saturday, May 30, 2020, with 553 new cases.
Lagos State which has led in the number of confirmed cases so far had its highest case on Saturday, May 30, 2020, with 378 cases.
So far, the 10 states with the highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 are Lagos, Kano, Katsina, Edo, Oyo, Kaduna, Borno, Ogun, Jigawa and the FCT.
Unlike in some countries where the COVID-19 curve has flattened and ushering hope for the people, Nigeria has continued to witness increasing cases despite effort by the Federal Government through the Presidential Task Force for the Control of COVID-19, Federal Ministry of Health, NCDC and other relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to stem the tide.
The National Orientation Agency (NOA), in a tweet on May 26, 2020, said the reason COVID-19 cases were increasing was because Nigerians were not taking responsibility by complying with the partial lockdown guidelines put in place by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
With over 10,000 cases, Nigeria has the third highest cases in Africa, tiptoeing South Africa that has 35,812 and Egypt that has 26, 384.
It is closely trailed by Algeria, Ghana and Morocco.
‘Crossing 10,000 mark quite significant’
The Director-General of NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, on Tuesday at the briefing of the task force on COVID-19, said crossing the 10,000 mark was quite significant for Nigeria.
Ihekweazu said 60 percent of the cases are in 20 local government areas spread across the nation.
He said: “Crossing that 10,000 mark was quite a significant event.
“I won’t call it a milestone and every night when we work very hard to bring out those numbers, sometimes numbers begin to feel like what they are.
“You forget that there are people behind each number.
“So, we have reported since the beginning of the outbreak on the likely exposure.
“Right now, cumulatively, just two percent of the cases have a travel history.
“In the beginning, there used to be 80 to 90 percent; at some point, it was 100 percent when everybody came back from some countries.
“Twenty three per cent of patients of new cases are contacts of existing patients,” he said.
He said that at the moment, 75 percent of people have an unknown source of their illness, meaning community transmission is on the increase.
FG’s worries
Daily Trust reports that the increasing number of cases has remained a source of concern to the Federal Government.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, had during a PTF briefing on Thursday, May 28, 2020, said although the increasing cases were not surprising, very high cases could seriously exceed the capacity of the country’s health system, and that routine cases might also suffer.
Dr. Ehanire said there was a need to expand treatment centres across the country, adding that it currently had 5,000-bed capacity in 112 isolation centres.
He said: “To expand our treatment centres across the country, I, therefore, call on the state governors and philanthropists to take active and deliberate steps to scale up the number of beds for isolation and treatment of confirmed cases in their states.”
Even with the increasing cases, many Nigerians do not believe the disease exists and make a poor effort on hygiene measures towards preventing its spread.
Position of experts
As the cases continue to increase, medical experts have identified the Federal Government’s inability to take pro-active measures such as delay in closure of international borders, inadequate testing centres, low testing rate and poor contact tracing as reasons.
They said other factors that had continued to contribute to the rising cases included unavailability of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), which led to infection of health workers, easing of lockdowns and easing of ban on public gathering by some states.
Also, unlike China which declared a total lockdown of the Wuhan Province when they realised that the COVID-19 cases were becoming a big health issue, Nigeria allegedly failed to take early action.
Although Lagos began contact tracing immediately, the arrival at the international airports in parts of the country continued for some weeks.
Lack of test centres were also an issue for NCDC as few centres existed as at March 25, 2020. NCDC had only five testing centres at the beginning of the outbreak and only had 26 recently.
Till date, 20 states are yet to have testing centres.
The President of the Nigeria Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Dr. Aliyu Sokomba, said Nigeria hitting 10,000 cases should not be seen as if the disease is increasing among the populace.
He said the increasing number of cases was as a result of increased testing.
Dr. Sokomba further said Nigeria was also approaching the peak of the curve, adding that with more aggressive testing, and as more people were being identified, the country would reach the peak and thereafter begin to flatten the curve.
However, Dr. Ifeanyi Cajetan Casmir, a medical and molecular microbiologist, said what Nigeria was currently experiencing was community transmission.
He said till date, Nigeria had not been able to test one per cent of its population, noting that: “We are yet to test up to two million people till date.”
Dr. Casmir, who is also the National Publicity Secretary of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN), said globally, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in countries had begun to decline, but that Nigeria was rather witnessing increasing cases.
While urging Nigerians not to panic about the increasing number, he said there were still a lot of questions around the country’s response.
On his part, the President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Prof. Innocent Ujah, also said COVID-19 cases were increasing because Nigeria was doing more testing.
Dr. Ujah said, “If you are doing more tests, you are more likely to know the status of the individuals.”
He further said there was need for the country to evaluate its strategy of response to know if it was doing things right or needed improvement, and added that scientific evidence was key to ascertaining the effectiveness of disease response.
How it started
The Federal Government announced the index case of COVID-19 in Nigeria on February 27, 2020.
The 44-year-old Italian citizen who worked in Nigeria had returned from Milan, Italy, to Lagos and travelled to his company’s site in Ogun State before he developed symptoms.
After the first, Nigeria did not record any case until March 10, 2020, when another case was confirmed in Ogun State.
He was a contact of the index case.
That brought the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria to two.
As of March 16, 2020, the country recorded three confirmed cases with no deaths.
However, by March 18, Nigeria recorded five new cases; bringing the number to eight.
Three of the new positive cases arrived from the United States, while two came in from the United Kingdom.
This marked the onset of imported cases which further led to more cases, with experts saying the inability of the Federal Government to close borders early enough led to the spread of cases.
Situation in states
Our correspondent reports that within the time under review, some states also witnessed increased cases.
For instance, while Kano reported the first case of COVID-19 on April 11, the cases rose to over 700 by May 17, surreptitiously overtaking FCT to become the second state with the highest cases.
As of Tuesday, the cases rose to 958.
On March 21, the NCDC announced the first three confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the FCT, and as of yesterday, the confirmed cases stood at 674.
As of March 30, when the Federal Government ordered total lockdown in the FCT, Lagos and Ogun, Nigeria had 131 confirmed cases and one death.
But as of May 4, when the Federal Government eased the lockdown, Nigeria had 2,802 confirmed cases in 34 states and the FCT. Also, 417 persons had been discharged, while 93 deaths were recorded.
However, by May 18, Nigeria recorded 5, 959 confirmed cases, 1,594 discharged and 182 deaths.
This translates to a 47 per cent increase in the number of confirmed cases within two weeks.
In fact, from Friday, May 14 to Sunday, May 17, the country recorded 797 new confirmed cases of COVID-19.
The Federal Government extended the ease of lockdown by another two weeks from May 18 to June 1, and Nigeria now has over 10,000 cases.
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