The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), on Friday disclosed that there is an already established community transmission of the Omicron COVID-19 variant across the country, as 45 cases of the variant have been confirmed as of December 21, 2021.
The development comes as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has ignited fresh trouble for travelers from Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia as its National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Emergency Management Authority (NCEMA) and the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) have suspended entry for passengers from the four African countries.
The new development has created chaos for both inbound and outbound passengers including Nigerians wishing to come home for the Yuletide as they engaged in last-minute flight change to other European, African, and US carriers.
The implication of the new travel rule is that Nigerians can’t use the other available Abu Dhabi-based airline, Etihad, which had seen an unprecedented rise in passenger traffic as an alternative to Emirates Airlines which stopped flight services to Nigeria because of the recently resolved spat between Nigeria-UAE.
Worried by the rising cases of the Omicron variant in the country, the NCDC noted that COVID-19 is now a commonplace illness like malaria, and urged Nigerians testing for malaria to also get tested for COVID-19.
The agency further urged Nigerians to celebrate the yuletide season responsibly by adhering to the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) of regular hand washing with soap in flowing water, hand sanitising with alcohol-based sanitisers, wearing of face masks, practicing social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings.
The Director General of the NCDC, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, made this known during a virtual press briefing on COVID-19.
He said: “From the period of November, our sequencing showed that the predominant variant was the Delta variant. But what we now know or see about the second week of December is that the Omicron has taken over. We now have established community transmission.
“The surge of waves we are currently witnessing is happening for two reasons: first is, given the season already, whether it is the Omicron or Delta variants, we would have had this because of the time of the year, increased movement and travel, non-adherence to public health safety measures and low vaccination. Second, we have a more transmissible variant which is culminating in the waves that we are witnessing.
“The result we have just received, which covers the period up to December 21, we had 45 Omicron cases, and most of them are no longer in travelers. Therefore, the wave we are witnessing is probably related to the more transmissible Omicron variant, which appears to have replaced the Delta variant, at least in the last two weeks.
“The number of tests done by rapid diagnostic tests has increased over the period. I would like anybody who wants to do a test for malaria to naturally have a COVID-19 test. People may not believe it, but that is now commonplace. I suspect that COVID-19 is in the country at the moment.
“For a lot of cases, whether with this variant or the previous variant, you don’t have to be terribly sick to actually test yourself for COVID-19. Even if you have flu, you should get tested in order to get isolated to prevent others from getting infected. So far, we haven’t identified a death that is directly due to the Omicron variant. We are looking at the metadata and will be able to update if the situation changes.
“The ‘celebrate responsibly’ campaign was prepared in anticipation for the yuletide and what we expect will be a situation of increased transmission because of people traveling, gathering together for parties, concerts, etc., people traveling in large numbers etc. We must celebrate responsibly by taking responsibility for protecting ourselves and those around us from the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
“We must adhere to mask use especially, physical distancing, hand washing, getting vaccinated, avoiding gatherings especially in indoor spaces. We believe that if we adhere to all of these, including avoiding non-essential travels, all of these elements make up for responsible celebration of the yuletide period. Also, city people should not take COVID-19 to the village when we celebrate Christmas.
“Up to four weeks ago, test results have been quite low. We have been appealing at the Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) briefings and every opportunity we had for people to have a high index of suspicion and to test; not to wait to test people who are very ill.”
As of December 23, 2021, there have been 233,353 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 212,040 discharges and 2,991 deaths reported.
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