Nigeria on Saturday recorded 497 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases as new infections continue to increase amid fears that the third wave of the pandemic has already hit the country.
The new figure indicated a less than 100 decrease from the 590 reported on Friday as the biggest daily figure since March.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control disclosed this on Saturday night, noting that the total number of cases in the country has risen to 173,908.
The nation’s disease control agency added that the 497 new cases were recorded in 17 states and the federal capital territory, FCT.
According to the latest update on its Facebook page, the NCDC said no new death was recorded from the disease, indicating that the fatality toll remains 2,149.
The agency also announced that eight people died from the disease on Friday.
Nigeria is currently experiencing a spike in infections, a development that has been attributed to the highly transmissible Delta variant discovered in the country a few weeks ago.
In its breakdown of the latest figure, the NCDC data showed that roughly a third of the new cases on Saturday were from Lagos.
The nation’s commercial capital recorded 211 out of the 497 daily total. Akwa-Ibom State came second with 80 new cases while Kwara recorded 73 cases.
Osun State in South-west region of Nigeria ranked 4th on the log with 29 cases while Oyo and Rivers had 17 cases each. Cross River recorded 15, Anambra nine and Ogun eight.
Ekiti recorded six new cases, the FCT, Bayelsa and Plateau states recorded four each. Bauchi and Nasarawa states also reported two while Kaduna recorded the lowest figure of one alongside Jigawa State.
With the recent increase in daily cases, active cases have risen to 6,755 in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, according to the NCDC data, of the over 173,000 new cases, 164,994 people have recovered and have been discharged from hospitals across the country.
Nigeria has tested over 2.4 million samples out of its estimated 200 million population.
As part of plans to curb the further spread of the disease, the federal government has warned against mass assemblies for political activities.
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