The Nigerian government has said that there was currently no reported detection of the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, in the country, despite claims by the Canadian Government that its first cases of the variant were from person who had recently travelled from Nigeria.
The National COVID-19 Incident Manager, Dr. Mukhtar Muhammad, stated this at a media briefing organised by the Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) on COVID-19 in Abuja.
Addressing journalists, Muhammad stressed that as of Monday, November 29, there had not been any detected case, saying:
“The PSC has continued to review our risk of this latest information and take every necessary step to stop it from being imported into the country. We have taken far-reaching proactive measures to minimise and mitigate this possibility.”
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The discovery last week by South Africa and Botswana of the more infectious variant of COVID-19 elicited global concern.
Muhammad said PSC would be issuing a travel guideline today to prevent the virus from spreading. The new travel guideline will require passengers arriving the country to do a PCR test 48 hours before departing.
They would also do day two and day seven PCR tests on arrival while they will be required to self-isolate for seven days, he added.
Muhammad decried the promotion of vaccine nationalism, a pervasive inequality at the global level that made rich countries to be able to procure vaccines for their own citizens, through direct agreements with pharmaceutical companies, while low and middle countries lagged behind. He said this was one of the factors fuelling COVID-19 and the emergence of variants of concern, including Omicron.
He warned that lack of vaccination in developing countries would provide a fertile ground for the virus to develop mutations, which will in turn threaten progress already recorded. Muhammad called on the developed countries to support efforts being made globally to ensure that there was equity and access to vaccines.
The Federal Government also said it was reviewing the situation around the world and putting in place measures to curtail the effect of the new variant on the country.
