With a total of 221 COVID-19 deaths, Nigeria, with estimated population of 205.5 million recorded a total of 7,526 confirmed cases which is equivalent to one death per million population according to data from the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, JHU, released on May 23rd, 2020.

From the data, Nigeria has lower death burden per million population when compared to the 7 deaths per million population recorded by South Africa (59.2 million) with 21, 343 cases and total of 407 deaths and Egypt (102.1 million) with 16,513 cases and total of 808 deaths.

In terms of the death burden per million population, Africa's most populous country, ties with less populous countries like Ghana (31 million) 6,617 cases and total of 198 deaths; Algeria (population 43.7 million) with 8,113 confirmed COVID-19 cases and total of 31 deaths; Ivory Coast (26.3 million) with 2,366 cases and total of 30 deaths and Togo (8.2 million) with 373 cases and total of 12 deaths.

From the data, Africa recorded a total of 107,747 confirmed cases and 3,257 deaths, and of the total 1.5 million COVID-19 tests so far conducted in the continent, Nigeria conducted a total of 43,328 tests, which is 2 percent of the total, compared to South Africa that has carried out 564,370 tests (37.6 percent); Ghana, 193,705 (12.9 percent); Cameroun, 161, 882 (10.7 percent); Egypt, 135,000 (9 percent); Morocco, 133,561 (8 percent); Kenya, 76,692 (5 percent), and Ethiopia, 57,650 (3 percent).

Although the case fertility rate for Nigeria is currently about 3 percent, Tomori, in a chat with Vanguard, said there was need to also compare the number of confirmed cases each month to be able to state clearly if the number of deaths are rising or not.