Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Rise by 91 in Nigeria, Now 873

• Confirmed COVID-19 Cases Rise by 91 in Nigeria, Now 873

More people are testing positive for COVID-19 in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, according to a recent report from the NCDC.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Wednesday said 91 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the country.

NCDC, through its official Twitter, handle @NCDCgov, said: “91 new cases of #COVID19 have been reported; 74 in Lagos; 5 in Katsina; 4 in Ogun; 2 in Delta; 2 in Edo; 1 in Kwara; 1 in Oyo; 1 in FCT and 1 in Adamawa.”

“As at 11:25 pm 22nd April there are 873 confirmed cases of #COVID19 reported in Nigeria.”

The break down of the report revealed that Lagos now has confirmed cases of 504. Followed by FCT-119; Kano-73; Ogun-24; Katsina-21; Osun-20; Oyo-17; Edo-17; Kwara-10; Kaduna-9; Akwa Ibom-9; Borno-9; Bauchi-8; Delta-6; Gombe-5; Ekiti-4; Ondo-3; Rivers-3; Jigawa-2; Enugu-2; Niger-2; Abia-2; Benue-1; Anambra-1; Sokoto-1 and Adamawa-1.

The rising number of confirmed cases despite measures to checkmate spread is likely to compel the Federal Government to extend the ongoing lockdown by an additional two weeks or even more.

The World Bank has said costs of lockdown, health systems and weak revenue generation due to COVID-19 will impact emerging economies and low-income nations more even though the virus infected fewer people in those economies.

This the bank attributed to the low fiscal space, high unemployment rate, high debt and high cost of governance in those economies.