Nigeria is set to reopen Covid-19 isolation and treatment centers as the number cases jumped to the highest in more than five months, according to the health ministry.
Testing centers across the country reported 675 cases on Thursday, the highest number of daily infections since July 1 when 790 were recorded, according to data on the website of the Nigeria Centre for Disease and Control. Infections have risen sharply in the past two weeks, the agency added in a post on Twitter Friday.
“We may be at the verge of the second wave of this pandemic,” Health Minister Osagie Ehanire told a briefing on Thursday. Nigeria’s infectious disease center said it has provided a public health advisory to citizens on the situation.
The country of more than 200 million people has 71,344 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 1,190 deaths. A presidential task force plans to request special funding in next year’s budget to secure at least 21 million doses of vaccine from the World Health Organization-backed Covax initiative.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control expects to license one of the vaccines under development globally by April
– Bloomberg Quint