Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire
NCDC confirms three more cases of Omicron variant, as total reaches 6
Barely a week after announcing the detection of the Covid-19 Omicron variant in the country, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported three additional cases of the virus strain on Tuesday.
Director-General of the NCDC, Ifedayo Adetifa, said in a signed statement, Tuesday, said these new cases bring the total of the recently discovered variant of the COVID-19 virus in Nigeria to six.
NCDC noted that the three additional cases were detected in passengers linked to South Africa in November.
“The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has confirmed three more cases of COVID-19 with the B.1.1.529 SARS-CoV-2 lineage, i.e, the Omicron variant in Nigeria. In addition to the three cases announced earlier on 1st December, this brings the total number of confirmed cases of the Omicron variant detected in Nigeria to six.
“All the Omicron cases so far were detected in persons with recent travel history to South Africa in November.
“The NCDC through the National Reference Laboratory continues to coordinate genomic surveillance activities across the country to sequence all positive COVID-19 samples from international travellers arriving in Nigeria.
“This includes sequencing of positive samples from international travellers from October 2021 to date.
“The Delta variant remains the dominant variant and so far, we have not seen the replacement of this variant by the new Omicron variant as observed elsewhere,” read the statement.
The NCDC said the Omicron variant is a source of global concern because of its increased risk of transmissibility and its potential to escape protective immune responses induced by natural infection and/or vaccination.
It would be recalled that the NCDC had last Wednesday, December 1, confirmed the first case of the Omicron variant in the country.
This was contained in a press release issued by the centre and signed by the Director-General, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa in Abuja.
Dr. Adetifa said that two cases of the variant were discovered through genomic sequencing. He linked the cases to two passengers from South Africa.
“In line with the routine travel tests required of all international travellers, genomic sequencing at the NCDC through its National Reference Laboratory, Abuja, confirms Nigeria’s first case of the Omicron variant.
“Genomic sequencing of positive cases from routine day-two testing for travellers to Nigeria identified two cases of Omicron variant among travellers from South Africa who arrived in Nigeria last week.
“Retrospective sequencing of previously confirmed cases among travellers to Nigeria also identified the Omicron variant among samples collected in October 2021” he explained.
He added that the two patients were asymptomatic and contact tracing had begun.
