…WHO DG says the world is running out of oxygen
By Audrey Lotechukwu
THUR, JUN 25 2020-theG&BJournal- The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Wednesday announced 649 more cases of COVID-19 and nine deaths as the outbreak continued its record breaking run in the month of June.
Overall confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria have now reached 22,020 and rapidly chasing after Egypt (58,141) with the second highest number of infections in Africa.
120,108 people have tested for the infection and the NCDC data shows that the number of discharged patients at 7,613 is also rapidly dropping off the pace of new infections. Active cases have equally piled up to new level of 13,865 with significant implication for the healthcare system.
The NCDC has attributed the surge in new cases to ongoing community transmission of the virus and increased testing capacity across States.
One interesting dimension is the addition of Cross River in the NCDC daily coronavirus update table Wednesday. It is the first time the State is added following months of running confrontation with the NCDC on its coronavirus status. The NCDC listed the State at 37 on the table and its status reflected as coronavirus free-no case and no death.
Oyo State on the other hand, set a new one day record of 100 confirmed cases, the only state besides Lagos to have achieved that number. New confirmed cases have been increasing steadily across the States with more breaking their hospitalisation records too.
Health experts and the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTF), Boss Mustapha has warned continued complacency of the people is helping the escalation of the spread of the disease across the country.
22 States reported new cases Wednesday. The top ten are Lagos-250, Oyo-100, Plateau-40, Delta-40, Abia-28, Kaduna-27, Ogun-22, Edo-20, Akwa Ibom-18 and Kwara-12.
Kano-1, Imo-1, Sokoto-2, Gombe-3, Anambra-4, Bauchi-6, Osun-4 and Bayelsa-7, recorded their number of new infection in single digit while Adamawa-13, Niger-13, Enugu-14 and FCT-17 all are in the double digits.
The young segment of the population between the ages of 10 and 50 are the worst hit, with men impacted more than women in terms of infection and fatality.
In other COVID-19 development, the Africa CDC data published June 24, 2020 shows 54 African Union Member States have reported a total of 324,696 confirmed cases, 8,618 deaths, and 154,170 recoveries.
The John Hopkins University global tracker shows 9,391, 433 confirmed cases globally. There have been 479,818 deaths.
The World Health Organisation Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during his media briefing yesterday ‘’we expect to reach 4 million cases within the next week.
‘’This is a sober reminder that even as we continue research into vaccines and therapeutics, we have an urgent responsibility to do everything we can with the tools we have now to suppress transmission and save lives,’’ and warned that many countries are now experiencing difficulties in obtaining oxygen concentrators.
WHO estimates that at the current rate of about 1 million new cases a week, the world needs about 620, 000 cubic meters of oxygen a day, which is about 88, 000 large cylinders.
‘’80 percent of the market is owned by just a few companies, and demand is currently outstripping supply,’’ he said.
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