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    Friday, February 19, 2021

    Nigeria's COVID-19 Cases Surpass 150,000 Amid Campaign for Vaccines

    The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria surpassed 150,000 when the country's disease control agency reported 877 new cases late Thursday amid government efforts to get vaccines against the coronavirus.

    Nigeria recorded 877 additional confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, as well as 16 deaths from the disease in 25 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

    The country has registered 150,246  cases of the virus since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 1,803, the Nigeria Centre for  Disease Control said on Thursday night while giving the daily report on its official Twitter handle.

    The total cumulative recoveries stand at 126,417 today with 695 patients recovered and discharged in the last 24 hours.

    Its stated that discharges today include 275 community recoveries in Lagos State and 91 community recoveries in Kwara State managed in line with guidelines.

    According to the breakdown released by the health agency, Lagos, the epicentre of the disease in the country, led with 273 new infections, followed by Kaduna with 87 and River with 58 infections.

    Other states with new positive cases are Akwa Ibom-47, Ebonyi-47, Edo-46, Ogun-46, Abia-34, Imo-34, Kano-34, Oyo-26, Osun-22, Gombe-20, Ekiti-19, Cross River-15, FCT-15, Plateau-11, Enugu-9, Kebbi-8, Borno-7, Niger-6, Bayelsa-5, Nasarawa-4, Kwara-2, Katsina-1 and Sokoto-1.

    The number of people reported recovered from COVID-19 on February 18 (695) is lower than the number of new COVID-19 cases reported that day (877)

    The NCDC said a multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), activated at Level 3, continues to coordinate the national response activities.

    Meanwhile, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for use in Nigeria.

    The approval came on the heels of the listing on Monday, of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use by the World Health Organisation, WHO.

    Announcing the approval on Thursday at a media briefing, the NAFDAC Director-General, Dr. Mojisola Adeyeye, said the evaluation of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine shows it is effective against the variant of the coronavirus first discovered in the UK, several cases of which have been reported in Nigeria.

    Adeyeye who explained that three other Covid-19 vaccines are being evaluated by the agency, however, said the variant of the virus first discovered in South Africa has not been reported in the country.

    The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, codenamed AZD1222, is the second COVID-19 vaccine to receive the WHO authorisation, after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

    The agency obtained the dossier of the vaccine last week and its Safety Committee immediately began evaluating its safety and efficacy for Nigerians.

    The WHO listed two versions of the AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, giving the green light for these vaccines to be rolled out globally through the COVAX facility. The approved vaccines are being produced by the Serum Institute of India, and by SKBio in South Korea.

    The emergency use listing procedure assesses the quality, safety, and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, and is a prerequisite for vaccines in the WHO co-led COVAX facility.

    Nigeria has been allocated 16 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine under the COVAX facility while more doses are being expected under the Africa Union arrangement.

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