States Not Collecting Enough Samples, NCDC Warns As It Reports 143 New Infections

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Monday reported 143 new cases of COVID-19 infections, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 54,008.

This is just as the NCDC has said the drop in new cases is mostly due to states not collecting enough rest samples.

Head of Disease Surveillance for the NCDC, Elsie Ilori spoke on Monday at the coronavirus Presidential Task Force briefing in Abuja on Monday.

In the update posted on its website, NCDC put the number of discharged patients at 41,638 and the death toll at 1,013.

Plateau State reported 35 new cases, the highest in the country. It was followed by Kaduna, which had 21 new infections.

Lagos State reported 19 new infections, the FCT had 13, Ebonyi had nine, while Adamawa, Enugu and Katsina had seven each.

Edo State reported six new infections, Kwara State reported five, Osun State had three, Anambra, Kano, Niger and Ogun states all had two each, while Benue, Borno and Sokoto states had one each.

On the drop in testing, Ilori said, “In July, there were seven states with decreased samples collected, but unfortunately, in August, it increased to 32 states with decreased samples collection. In July, we had 13 states that actually collected over 1,000 samples.

“For August, no state met that target. That means we had zero states collecting over 1,000 samples. For the local government areas, in July we had 515 that collected samples and it decreased to 478 in August. We can appreciate the decrease in August.”

He said, “In August, states with the biggest increase are Abia 682, Sokoto 331, Bayelsa 314, Zamfara 55 and Yobe 12, but the numbers are not significant at all.
“In the same month, the biggest decrease in sample collection are Kano 19,108, Lagos 13,146, Oyo 4,902, Edo 3,327, and FCT 3,322.”