Nigeria confirms second case of virus in country

A regional Nigerian health commissioner on Monday confirmed the country's second COVID-19 case in a man with links to a factory which recently hosted an Italian businessman. Lagos State Commissioner for Health Akin Abayomi told reporters in Lagos that all forty people who had been in close contact with the Italian national, who visited the Lafarge cement company in Ogun State, had been tested for the new virus, with one coming out positive.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

The vast majority of people recover from the new virus.

According to the World  Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.

In mainland China, where the virus first exploded, more than 80-thousand people have been diagnosed and more than 58-thousand have so far recovered.

In a statement published on Twitter, Nigerian Minister of Health Osagie Ehanire said that the affected individual displayed "no significant clinical symptoms."

Abayomi added that authorities were now conducting extensive contact tracing, in "extremely aggressive" efforts to curb the spread of the new virus in Nigeria.

The new case brings the west African country's total number of infections to two.