The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed 684 new cases of Coronavirus in the country, bringing the total number to 23,298.
The NCDC made the announcement on Friday night via its verified Twitter handle.
“On the 26th of June 2020, 684 new confirmed cases and 5 deaths were recorded in Nigeria. No new state has reported a case in the last 24 hours.
“Till date, 23298 cases have been confirmed, 8253 cases have been discharged and 554 deaths have been recorded in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
“The 684 new cases are reported from 19 states- Lagos(259),Oyo(76), Katsina(69), Delta(66), Rivers(46), Ogun(23), Edo(22), Osun(22), Ebonyi(21), FCT(20), Kaduna(16), Ondo(10), Imo(9), Abia(9), Gombe(5), Plateau(4), Bauchi(4), Ekiti(2), Anambra(1),” the NCDC said.
There is still a question mark on the status of Cross River State as conflicting reports have argued on the discovery of index case.
It would be recalled that there had been controversies in the news about Cross River State reporting an index case. The University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) said a patient has tested positive to COVID-19 in the facility despite the fact that NCDC has not announced any confirmed case of the pandemic in the South-South state.
A breakdown of the 23,298 confirmed cases is presented below
| States Affected | No. of Cases (Lab Confirmed) | No. of Cases (on admission) | No. Discharged | No. of Deaths |
| Lagos | 9,741 | 8,140 | 1,475 | 126 |
| FCT | 1,676 | 1,126 | 518 | 32 |
| Oyo | 1,264 | 748 | 506 | 10 |
| Kano | 1,191 | 322 | 818 | 51 |
| Rivers | 982 | 408 | 536 | 38 |
| Edo | 873 | 573 | 267 | 33 |
| Delta | 781 | 589 | 170 | 22 |
| Ogun | 756 | 241 | 498 | 17 |
| Kaduna | 684 | 354 | 320 | 10 |
| Katsina | 528 | 239 | 267 | 22 |
| Bauchi | 497 | 61 | 424 | 12 |
| Gombe | 487 | 142 | 329 | 16 |
| Borno | 477 | 58 | 387 | 32 |
| Jigawa | 317 | 120 | 191 | 6 |
| Plateau | 298 | 134 | 156 | 8 |
| Abia | 297 | 121 | 173 | 3 |
| Ebonyi | 285 | 37 | 247 | 1 |
| Imo | 278 | 242 | 33 | 3 |
| Kwara | 217 | 83 | 128 | 6 |
| Ondo | 216 | 127 | 70 | 19 |
| Enugu | 202 | 160 | 37 | 5 |
| Nasarawa | 198 | 78 | 112 | 8 |
| Bayelsa | 184 | 131 | 41 | 12 |
| Sokoto | 140 | 7 | 118 | 15 |
| Osun | 106 | 54 | 47 | 5 |
| Niger | 84 | 44 | 37 | 3 |
| Akwa Ibom | 83 | 38 | 43 | 2 |
| Zamfara | 76 | 0 | 71 | 5 |
| Adamawa | 73 | 30 | 37 | 6 |
| Anambra | 71 | 5 | 57 | 9 |
| Kebbi | 71 | 23 | 42 | 6 |
| Yobe | 56 | 3 | 45 | 8 |
| Benue | 47 | 31 | 15 | 1 |
| Ekiti | 40 | 10 | 28 | 2 |
| Taraba | 19 | 9 | 10 | 0 |
| Kogi | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government on Friday said it has approved seven private laboratories as COVID-19 testing centres.
Lagos Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi who disclosed this during a briefing at Alausa said the private laboratories were selected through a rigorous accreditation process.
Abayomi said the private laboratories include “Total Medical Services, SynLab, 54 Gene, Medbury Medical Services, Biologix Medical Services, O2 Medical Services, and Clina Lancent Laboratories.
“We expect the selected laboratories to commence testing COVID-19 cases within the next few days.”
The commissioner said four public laboratories with a combined capacity of 2,000 are testing COVID-19 samples in the state.
The laboratories include -Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Lagos State Biobank, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, and Central Public Health Laboratory.
“As Lagos State continuously attempts to open up various aspects of its economy, it is imperative that COVID-19 tests are widely available to members of the public.
“In a bid to ramp up its testing capacity, Lagos state government has taken a strategic decision to include private laboratories in the testing of COVID-19.
“However, the state’s COVID-19 responses will remain a centrally managed emergency response by the state government,” Abayomi said.
He also noted that even though 42 percent of the confirmed cases in Nigeria have been in Lagos state, the state accounts for only 23.6 percent of the recorded deaths due to COVID-19 in Nigeria.
The commissioner added that the state has tested 1,629 persons per million of the population in the state.
According to him, Eti-Osa Local Government Area leads with the highest number of reported cases of COVID-19 in the state, followed by Alimosho, Kosofe, Ikeja, Oshodi, Surulere, and Lagos Mainland
