Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the country’s national public health institute mandated to lead the preparedness, detection and response to public health emergencies, has confirmed the detection of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in Nigeria.
She disclosed this detection on her website in an 8th July publication where she observed that ‘The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has detected a confirmed case with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, also known as lineage B.1.617.2. The variant was detected in a traveler to Nigeria, following the routine travel test required of all international travelers and genomic sequencing at the NCDC National Reference Laboratory, Abuja.
‘The Delta variant is recognised by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a variant of concern, given its increased transmissibility. The variant has been detected in over 90 countries and is expected to spread to more countries. The variant has also been linked to a surge in cases in countries where it is the dominant strain in circulation. There are ongoing studies to understand the impact of the variant on existing vaccines and therapeutics’, her statement reads in part.
World over, there are a total of 187 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 4.03 million deaths. In Nigeria, there are a total of 169 thousand cases with 164 thousand recoveries and 2,124 recorded deaths, with just only 2,355,236 samples tested out of a population of 200 million.
