TheCable

Plateau state is slowly becoming the new epicentre of COVID-19 in Nigeria after recording the highest number of cases for six consecutive days.

On Sunday, the state recorded 55 coronavirus cases which accounts for 40 percent of the total announced by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

Although its infections have not been on a steady increase, a majority of the cases recently announced by the NCDC have come from the state which has 2,429 cases so far with almost half of them still active.

Plateau first emerged the worst-hit in recent daily counts on August 25 when it recorded 50 infections; 20 percent of the total announced that day.

Since then, it has recorded 363 new infections, 34 percent of the 1,065 cases Nigeria recorded in the last six days.

Dabe Francis, the state epidemiologist, declined comments on the situation when contacted on Monday.

“The situation is not something that can be discussed over the phone. It would also involve the commissioner and others,” he told TheCable over the phone.

The new trend in Plateau started even before the presidential task force on COVID-19 announced Plateau as the new epicentre of the pandemic.

At the task force briefing on Thursday, Boss Mustapha, its chairman and secretary to the government of the federation, had said: “The PTF would also like to draw our attention to a subtle change in the epicentre of the virus.

“We all recall that Lagos, Kano and Ogun states were the initial epicentres and then to Oyo at a time, it is now Plateau state.”

Data released by the NCDC on Sunday night showed that Nigeria currently has 11,339 active COVID-19 cases.

138 new cases of #COVID19Nigeria;

Plateau-55
Lagos-15
Ebonyi-11
Oyo-11
Abia-8
Anambra-7
FCT-7
Rivers-7
Kaduna-6
Ondo-5
Kwara-3
Bauchi-1
Benue-1
Edo-1

53,865 confirmed
41,513 discharged
1,013 deaths pic.twitter.com/HfTvUqmYXc

— NCDC (@NCDCgov) August 30, 2020

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