Nigeria confirms first coronavirus case

Nigeria on Friday announced the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in sub-Saharan Africa.

“The case is an Italian citizen who works in Nigeria and returned from Milan, Italy to Lagos, Nigeria on the 25th of February 2020,” Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said in a statement on Twitter.

“The patient is clinically stable, with no serious symptoms, and is being managed at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba, Lagos.”

Prior to the case in Nigeria, just two cases had surfaced across all of Africa — in Egypt and in Algeria — a tally that had puzzled health specialists, given the continent’s close economic ties with China.

The World Health Organization warned earlier this week that African health systems were ill-equipped to respond to the deadly coronavirus outbreak should cases start to proliferate on the continent.

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting 53 countries and territories around the world and 1 international conveyance (the “Diamond Princess” cruise ship harbored in Yokohama, Japan).

So far 83,369 cases have been reported worldwide with 2,858 deaths recorded. 

Some 36,525 persons who initially tested positive, have now recovered.