Nigeria’s COVID-19 cases have reached 19,808 as the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, NCDC, announced 661 new cases on Saturday night.
The Centre also announced that 19 deaths were recorded in the country in last 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 506.
“On the 20th of June 2020, 661 new confirmed cases and 19 deaths were recorded in Nigeria.
No new state has reported a case in the last 24 hours.”
Till date, 19,808 cases have been confirmed, 6718 cases have been discharged and 506 deaths have been recorded in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The 661 new cases are reported from 14 states- Lagos(230), Rivers(127), Delta(83), FCT(60), Oyo(51), Edo(31),Bayelsa(27), Kaduna(25), Plateau(13), Ondo(6), Nasarawa(3), Ekiti(2), Kano(2), Borno(1).
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has debunked allegations made by the Cross River State Government that the agency is shipping positive and negative test kits and cartridges into the state.
NCDC, in a statement issued on Saturday, said it was aware of recent statements regarding the country’s COVID-19 testing processes, by the Commissioners of Information and Health in Cross River State.
The Commissioners of Information and Health in Cross River State, Asu Okang and Beta Edu, had, during the week, accused the NCDC and the Federal Ministry of Health of shipping positive and negative test kits and cartridges to Nigeria Navy Reference Hospital in Calabar, to violate the state’s COVID-19 free status.
But, while reacting to the accusation, the Director General, NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the allegations by the Cross River Commissioners of Information and Health are a misinterpretation of the Federal Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 testing strategy and efforts to protect the health of Nigerians from this disease.
“One of our responsibilities at NCDC is to scale-up the capacity for COVID-19 diagnosis in Nigeria as we respond to this pandemic. Our ability to promptly detect cases and halt the spread of the virus in our communities, is largely dependent on our ability to scale-up access to testing for Nigerians,” he said.