UPDATED: BREAKING: Suspected COVID-19 Patient Dies In Quarantine, As Nigeria Records Second Death

A suspected patient who tested positive for Coronavirus infection and was quarantine for treatment, has died in Nigeria .

Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, confirmed the death on Monday during a press briefing in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

The minister did not disclose the identity of the victim and where the death took place, only evening that the “fatality was recorded over the weekend in the person of a patient who had severe underlying illnesses”.

He told the media: “Till date, three persons have been discharged after successful treatment. But sadly, another fatality was recorded over the weekend in the person of a patient who had severe underlying illnesses.

“We have intensified contact tracing and our strategy remains to promptly detect cases, isolate them, and follow up with their contacts and also isolate and treat, in order to reduce the spread of the infection.”

Continuing, Dr. Ehanire said: “As of today, the 30th of March, 2020, we have recorded 111 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria of which 68 are in Lagos, 21 in the FCT, seven in Oyo, three in Ogun, two in Bauchi, two in Edo, two in Osun, two in Enugu, and one each in Benue, Ekiti, Kaduna and Rivers states.”

According to News Express, the minister revealed that a majority of the coronavirus victims in the country are people who came in from overseas.

The development brings the number of death cases to two.

The first to die from COVID-19 in the country after he returned from UK was Engineer Suleiman Achimugu, a former Managing Director of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC).