The Edo State Government said 16 persons, including a pregnant woman, died in the state within 48 hours.
The pregnant woman, 33, died at Stella Obasanjo Hospital in Benin, according to the state’s Coronavirus Case Management Head, Dr. Ebomwonyi Osagie.
Osagie, who announced this at the daily press briefing on the virus on Monday, said that the victims were not vaccinated.
He said: “This particular patient came in and died about three hours after presentation at the Stella Obasanjo Hospital; late presentation is a major issue in managing crisis.
“She is about 28 weeks pregnant, already having pre-eclampsia, so, the debate is actually if it is the pre-eclampsia that killed her or COVID-19.
“The woman has COVID-19, which pushed her more toward developing pre-eclampsia and then death. Some other women have pre-eclampsia and are successfully managed.
“Late presentation is an issue, because the patient died three hours after presentation, which means that there is little that would have been done to manage the situation, so, we are appealing to private hospitals to let patients go very early for treatment.
“So far, a total of 537 samples were collected, with a total of 1,004 confirmed cases, 103 recovered and were discharged and 16 deaths recorded within 48hours.
“We have 70 people in admission, 296 people in homecare, 344 discharged and 50 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic.”