•Report by Mudasir Opeyemi
The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Ifedayo Adetifa says travel restrictions implemented by the Federal Government to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 achieved no public health benefit.
Adetifa, disclosed this in a series of tweets on Sunday, saying that the restrictions impacted negatively on individuals and businesses.
“Recent experience in Nigeria with the arrival of omicron showed travel restrictions did not have any public health benefits but were disruptive for persons and businesses. COVID-19 has and continues to follow a different course (epidemiology in Nigeria and most of Africa).
“Other omicron progeny that were associated with increases in cases, admissions and deaths elsewhere did not cause the same in Nigeria as confirmed by our genomics surveillance,” he said
According to him, the Nigerian population is significantly protected from a combination of natural infection and vaccination.
Following a meeting of the NCDC COVID-19 National Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) held on Saturday, Adetifa said the EOC would continue to review the ongoing COVID-19 situation over the coming week.
“At the next review and if deemed necessary, a range of actions, not limited to enhanced surveillance of travellers at airports, may be implemented,” he added.
He further explained that Omicron variant was first detected in Dec. 2021 in Nigeria and it has since then became the dominant strain
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“In Nigeria, @NCDCgov continues with genomic surveillance. The omicron variant was first detected in Dec2021 and has since become the dominant strain. BQ.1/BQ.1.1 and related sub lineages were first seen in Nigeria from July 2022 and BQ.1 became the dominant from Aug2022. BQ.1.1 took over in Sep2022 and persisted since then. None of these were associated with any increases in case numbers, admissions or deaths. We have not detected BF.7 or XBB.1.5 in country yet (sequencing updates for Dec2022 are in progress),”
“The Nigerian COVID-19 response continues to be executed via 4 pillars – continued surveillance, genomics surveillance, capacity for surge testing and vaccination.
“Regardless of SARS-CoV-2 variants in different parts of the world, there continues to be an excess of cases, severe disease, admissions and deaths among the under or unvaccinated and those with established risk factors – old age, cardiovascular and endocrine co-morbidity, immune suppressive states (disease and/or treatments), etc.
He,however, urged Nigerians to get fully vaccinated against the deadly Omicron variant adding that the basic safety recommendations by the government should be strictly adhered to.
“We advise Nigerians to make use of every opportunity the Federal Government has provided via the @NphcdaNG to get vaccinated i.e., receive your primary vaccination which can be two or a single vaccine dose. If you have received two vaccine doses already, go get your booster.
“If you have received one booster dose already, please go get your second booster dose. If you belong in any of the high-risk categories (old age, etc), kindly ensure you adhere to recommended public health safety measures – mask use, hand hygiene and avoiding crowded spaces,” he said.