#COVID19: NCDC DG, Chikwe Ihekweazu Says No State In Nigeria Is Free From The Virus

Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu, on Monday, disclosed that no state in the country is free from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

He stated this during the briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja.

The comment comes even as the NCDC is yet to officially report a case in Cross River state, as of Tuesday Morning.

Ihekweazu was responding to a question about states who were discharging patients and declaring themselves COVID-19 free.

In his words: “No state, no single state in Nigeria is COVID-19 free, not one. No country in the world is COVID-19 free. Even New Zealand, that is an island state is still having new cases after a period of not having any.

“We can’t separate ourselves from the rest of the country. We live in a context, viruses spread, it’s the nature of them, so right now no state is COVID-19 free. That’s why we have to keep doing this work that we are doing, testing people, finding out if they have it.”

On Monday, the NCDC announced 675 new cases of #COVID19, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 20,919.

See breakdown below:

Lagos-288
Oyo-76
Rivers-56
Delta-31
Ebonyi-30
Gombe-28
Ondo-20
Kaduna-20
Kwara-20
Ogun-17
FCT-16
Edo-13
Abia-10
Nasarawa-9
Imo-9
Bayelsa-8
Borno-8
Katsina-8
Sokoto-3
Bauchi-3
Plateau-2

20,919 confirmed
7,109 discharged
525 deaths