Nigeria has tested less than one percent of the estimated 205 million population for the novel Coronavirus Infectious Disease (COVID-19), data have proved.
According to data from Worldometer, a wikipedia tool for collating data on COVID-19 collated on 13th of April 2020, Nigeria has 228 active cases. It had tested just 5,000 persons, representing 0.1 percent of the 205m population of which 323 returned positive. While 85 persons have recovered, 10 others died.
As of Monday, the figure for global Coronavirus cases was at 1.874 million with 70.6 percent (1.323m) of them active. While 23.2 percent (435,185) had recovered, 116,045 deaths representing 6.2 percent have been reported.
Nigeria is not the only country lagging in testing citizens. Analysis of records among the top five global countries hit by the pandemic shows that only Italy was able to test 1.6 percent (1.01m persons) of its 60.46m population which revealed 156,363 positive cases. It still battles with 102,253 active cases after recording 34,211 recoveries and 19,899 deaths.
It was followed by Spain which has 46.75m population. It has tested 1.1 percent (600,000 persons) and recorded 169,496 cases. While 87,280 cases are still active, the country has seen 64,727 people recovered from the infection while 17,489 died.
The closest in the test level ranking according to population ratio is the United States of America (USA) with 330.6m people. It has so far tested 0.9 percent of them representing 2.845m people, recorded 561,159 cases and is combatting 505,904 active cases.
The United Kingdom has 67.89m people and has tested 367,667 (0.5%) from which it recorded 88,621 cases and is battling 76,948 active cases as of Monday.
France tested 0.4 percent (333,807) of its 65.27m population. While it recorded 132,591 COVID-19 positive cases, 91,012 of those cases are still active.
In Africa, South Africa has done 80,085 tests representing 0.2 percent of its 59.3m population. The country discovered 2,173 positive cases and is now tackling 1,738 active cases.
From 101m population in Egypt, it tested 25,000 (0.2%), discovered 2,065 cases and is still managing 1,317 active cases.
Ghana has 31.07m population from which it tested 37,954 people (0.2%), recorded 566 cases as 554 are still in admission for treatment.
Algeria with 43.85m population is behind after it tested 0.1 percent (3,359 persons) of that population. It had recorded 1,914 cases and is still treating 1,030 of the positive cases.
