More than 80 percent of those who contract coronavirus disease in Nigeria do not show signs of the ailment (they are asymptomatic), says Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu.

Ihekweazu who is managing the agency responsible for curtailing spread of the disease in Nigeria said that, under normal circumstances, people in this category should not have been placed in isolation facilities.

The reason they are being kept away is to “prevent transmission of the virus especially to their loved ones,” he said.

Grilled by a local TV anchor on the methods being used, he defended the entire process which he said is tailored to quickly adapt to local situations.

“We can’t have a system better than the context we live in; we are making best use of our realities in Nigeria and doing our best,” he said.

Nigeria crossed the 7,000 mark yesterday 21 May 2020 as NCDC announced a total of 7,016 cases from tests confirmed in 17 states of the country and the FCT.

Lagos State, the epicenter of the disease, also crossed the 3,000 mark to reach 3,093 cases, accounting for 44 percent of cases so far reported in Nigeria.

Yesterday’s report showed that a quarter of all Covid-19 patients fully recovered and have been discharged.

Nine persons died from the disease yesterday, brnging the total number that succumbed to 211 persons.

NCDC reported that 339 new cases were confirmed for Lagos (139), Kano and Oyo States (28 each), Edo (25), Katsina (22), Kaduna (18), Jigawa (14), Yobe and Plateau (13 each).

The rest included FCT (11), Gombe (8), Ogun (5), Bauchi and Nasarawa (4 each), Delta (3), Ondo (2) and Adamawa and Rivers States (1 each).

No case was reported from the South East states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.

The region has the lowest total of 48 cases, out of which 16 have recovered with no death recorded.

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