The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), has reported 597 new cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria, as the numbers for new cases keeps increasing by the day.
According to NCDC, in a statement released on Tuesday 7th September 2021, the country recorded a total of 597 new cases that have been confirmed by the agency, with 17 deaths recorded on the same date.
The agency in their daily update on the wave of the pandemic, stated that as of Tuesday 7th September, there has been a total of 196,487 confirmed cases in the country, with a total of 185,159 cases being those that have been discharged and 2,573 deaths recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory so far.
The latest 597 new cases the agency said were reported from 14 states of the federation, with Lagos state contributing the highest rate of new cases.
The distribution of the new cases across the 14 states, shows the following:
Lagos-204
Rivers-89
Edo-65
FCT-50
Oyo-47
Enugu-46
Ekiti-24
Cross River-17
Delta-15
Gombe-15
Osun-12
Plateau-6
Benue-5
Kano-2
The NCDC also noted that Tuesday’s report includes 0 cases from Abia, Nasarawa, Ondo and Sokoto States.
While the new cases so far reported is not good news, if there is anything, Nigerians will be happy to hear that the Federal Government has reached an agreement with aggrieved health workers in the country.
According to reports, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, disclosed this to journalists at the end of a five-hour conciliation meeting with the leadership of Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) on Tuesday in Abuja.
JOHESU had on September 3 issued a 15-day ultimatum to the federal government to meet its demands or face an indefinite strike.
Ngige said both parties reached an understanding at the meeting, adding that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would be signed next week.
He said the parties discussed in a fraternal way and reached an understanding on the enhancement of hazard allowance, review of retirement age from 60 to 65 years, the arrears of the consequential adjustment of the national minimum wage and other issues in the dispute.
The minister said the government and JOHESU also reached an agreement on the upward adjustment of Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) as done with Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS).
Ngige said: “Based on the previous discussion, we delivered to them (JOHESU) the financial implication of what is due to them and they promised to get back to their members and report back to us.
“On the other hand, the government is meeting with the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) next week for their separate discussion on hazard allowance. Already the federal government has budgeted the sum of N37.5 billion for this.
“The issue was resolved to the satisfaction of all of us. The government is not delaying the hazard allowance as some people want the public to believe.
”Since the past six months, the government has been making concerted efforts to push the new hazard allowance into effect, which we are doing now but for disagreement between NMA and JOHESU.”