Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, as at end of June 2020 was Africa’s third most impacted country only behind South Africa and Egypt.

As Africa’s biggest economy, the federal government has continued to enforce regulations across the board even though most state governments have moved to relax restrictions.

The national response is led by the Presidential Task Force, PTF, led by SGF Boss Mustapha along with a national coordinator and relevant ministers – chief among them, Health, Foreign Affairs and Education ministries. At the heart of the response is the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, NCDC.

This article is dedicated to covering events from the country throughout the month of July. Our May 2020 page and June 2020 coverage also gives you a rundown of major developments.

July 13: 32,558 cases; eight states with over 1,000 cases

Nigeria’s case load reached 32,558 as of close of day July 12, 2020. The NCDC stats indicated that over 550 new cases were recorded. Recoveries hit 13,447 whiles the death toll stood at 740.

Seven states along with the capital Abuja had recorded over 1,000 cases since the index case was recorded. Lagos by a mile is the most impacted state with 12,427 cases. FCT has 2,576 whiles Edo and Oyo’s 1,731 and 1,726 tallies respectively complete the top four slots.

Rivers, Delta, Kano and Ogun states complete the 1000+ list whiles Kaduna is inching towards joining the club. The state currently has 989 cases.

Confirmed cases = 32,558

Active cases = 18,371

Recoveries = 13,447

Number of deaths = 740

John Hopkins Uni stats valid as of July 10, 2020

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July 11: 31,323 cases; govt launches test kit

The federal government has launched a diagnostic kit, which can detect the causal agent of COVID-19. It is known as RNASwift,

The kit was outdoored tt a press conference on Tuesday by the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), the agency that developed it.

NABDA director-general Alex Akpa, told journalists the RNASwift test kit is an indigenous diagnostic test kit designed, developed and validated in Nigeria for the identification of the causal agent – SARS-Cov-2 – which causes COVID-19.

He stressed that the kit will not only revolutionalise Africa’s PCR-based COVID-19 testing but also expand the capacity by at least, 50 times. Another advantage it presents was the reduced cost by over 500 percent as compared to the conventional kit in use.

He said the diagnostic kit is “very accurate and sensitive’’ and competes favourably with conventional and commercially available kits for the diagnosis of COVID-19.

The project was undertaken in collaborative effort between NABDA, Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and Nigerian Institute for Medical Research (NIMR). It is not known as yet when i

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