THE Ondo State Government on Tuesday rejected the figure of the COVID-19 victims in the state released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The NCDC has in its report on Monday said that Ondo State has 2,506 cases of COVID-19, maintaining that 2,080 people were discharged while 55 died from the infection.

According to the centre, the state currently has 371 active cases.

However, the state government in a statement issued by the acting Commissioner for Health, Dr Jibayo Adeyeye, in Akure, rejected the figure.

The statement was titled, ‘COVID-19 figure released by the NCDC is not a true picture of COVID situation in Ondo State.’

The commissioner said, “The NCDC report created an impression that the state was now the most severely affected state in the country. This is far from the truth.

“The true picture is that the figure recently declared for the state is a cumulative of arrears for several days due to delay in getting results from the testing laboratories.

“The current situation report with regards to COVID-19 in the state includes 18,443 as total number of samples collected since inception, 2,491 confirmed cases, 2,395 recovery cases.