By our Reporter
As the yuletide season draws near, coronavirus infections have been on a steady rise in Nigeria in the past one week with 474 new cases reported on Wednesday, according to health authorities.
In just seven days, 2, 729 infections were reported, indicating resurgence in cases after weeks of low numbers which was reported from 16 states.
The latest cases took the total number of infections in the country to 70,669 while a total of 1,184 fatalities have also been recorded in the country after two persons died from the disease on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, of the over 70,000 persons infected by the disease in Nigeria, 65,242 have been discharged from hospitals after treatment.
Active cases in the country are now over 5, 000 due to recent rise in new infections.
This is according to an update Wednesday night by Nigeria’s Centre for disease control, (NCDC).
The 474 new cases were reported from the following 16 states:
FCT-180
Lagos-134
Kebbi-45
Adamawa-26
Plateau-16
Enugu-14
Taraba-14
Gombe-12
Nasarawa-8
Yobe-8
Rivers-5
Ogun-5
Kwara-2
Ekiti-2
Sokoto-2
Osun-1
The two most affected cities again were Abuja and Lagos which led in Wednesday’s count with 180 and 134 new cases respectively which is more than half of the total.
The update came amid a second wave of infections in many parts of the world, especially Europe and America. The global tally has surpassed 66 million infections and 1.5 million deaths.
However, there is optimism in the treatment of the virus as at least three vaccines have shown over 90 per cent effectiveness during trials, according to the manufacturers.
Nigeria has so far tested over 800,000 of its 200 million populations for the virus.
The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 has also advised Nigerians to suspend their Christmas and New Year travels to reduce the risk of contracting the virus.