Nigeria detects 3 cases of omicron variant COVID-19

The Nigerian health authorities confirmed today three cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in their territory, becoming the third country in Africa to detect this variant and the first outside the south of the continent.

“We have identified two cases of the omicron variant among South African passengers who arrived in Nigeria last week,” the director of the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC), Ifedayo Adetifa, said in a statement today.

However, Adetifa indicated that this variant actually arrived in Nigeria more than a month ago, as further comprehensive analyzes of positive COVID-19 tests “also identified the omicron variant (third case) in a sample collected in October.”

“From the NCDC we believe that the omicron variant is widespread worldwide due to the growing number of countries that are reporting on it,” said the director of this medical institution.

Ómicron: is the new variant of the coronavirus really so dangerous?

Nigeria is the main economy in Africa and the most populous country on this continent, with more than 206 million inhabitants, according to the latest World Bank (WB) calculations.

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Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Nigerian authorities have confirmed more than 214,200 infections and nearly 3,000 deaths from this disease.

In Africa, the omicron variant has also been detected in South Africa and Botswana, nations located in the south of the continent, causing many countries to impose travel restrictions on southern Africa.

For its part, Mozambique detected two suspected cases of omicron in its territory on Tuesday after re-examining all the samples collected over the past month, as announced by Mozambique’s Minister of Health, Armindo Tiago.

Tiago also highlighted that, while one of the patients had mild symptoms, the other was asymptomatic. So far, the Government of Mozambique has confirmed more than 151,540 coronavirus infections and 1,940 deaths.

The omicron variant, also identified as B.1.1.529, was reported by South Africa and classified as “worrisome” by the World Health Organization (WHO) last week, within the usual evolution of a virus.

The WHO explained that most of these changes in viruses have little effect but that others can influence the ease of spread, the severity of the disease or the effectiveness of vaccines. (I)