The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has confirmed three cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19 in Nigeria, the agency said.
NCDC said on Tuesday that it confirmed the Omicron variant, also known as the B.1.1.529 lineage, in travelers from South Africa.
This development came as Canada announced a ban on travelers from Nigeria and two other African countries – Egypt and Malawi. This raised to 10 number of African countries banned by the North American country over fears that this new variant of COVID-19 could spread to it.
Omicron is said to have originated from South Africa. The emergency of this variant has been blamed on the slow pace of vaccination against the pandemic in Africa caused largely by the paucity of vaccines supplied to the continent.
The discovery of the variant in Nigeria coincided with the arrival in the country the same day that the South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, arrived in the country at the start of a meeting with his Nigerian counterpart.
This has also coincided with the Federal Government’s decision to enforce a policy of “no vaccination, no work” for its civil servants. On Tuesday, December 1, the government locked out all civil servants who have not received the complete vaccination against COVID-19.
Dr. Ifedayo Adefila, the Director-General of NCDC, said the three cases were discovered through the routine travel test required of all international travellers and genomic sequencing at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, through Its National Reference Laboratory, Abuja.
