The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has confirmed the emergence of a new variant of COVID-19 in Nigeria and 15 other countries.
The new variant of the novel virus ‘B.1.525 was revealed on Monday, February 22 by Chikwe Ihekweazu, the Director-General, NCDC.
Naija News understands that Ihekweazu made the disclosure during the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTFCOVID19) briefing yesterday. According to the medical personnel, the new variant of the dreaded disease is “yet to be classified as a variant of concern until it is associated with any significant clinical impact.”
The NCDC boss in this regard warned Nigerians to adhere strictly to all laid down guidelines to avoid the critical spread of the dreaded disease.
The NCDC report reads: “At today’s @PTFCOVID19 briefing, DG @Chikwe_I spoke on the ‘B.1.525’ variant recently detected in Nigeria
“The ‘B.1.525 is yet to be classified as a variant of concern until it is associated with any significant clinical impact”
“The risk of mutation is highest with the increased transmission, therefore adhering to non-pharmaceutical interventions to limit #COVID19 spread is critical to prevent new variants from emerging”
“Following a recent meeting with the #COVID19 Genomic Sequencing Implementation Group, 100 samples will be sent to @acegid weekly, to scale-up sequencing capacity. Sequencing is important for us to understand the ongoing transmission & impact of vaccines”
“We thank our sister agency @nimrnigeria, the states & our partners for a successful #COVID19 seroprevalence survey in four states. The survey indicates that the majority of the sampled population are susceptible to the virus infection, which highlights the need for vaccines”
See the thread below:
At today’s @PTFCOVID19 briefing, DG @Chikwe_I spoke on the ‘B.1.525’ variant recently detected in Nigeria
“The ‘B.1.525 is yet to be classified as a variant of concern until it is associated with any significant clinical impact” pic.twitter.com/dqGRHOfkCP
— NCDC (@NCDCgov) February 22, 2021
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC has confirmed five hundred and twenty-one new cases of COVID-19 disease in Nigeria.
The new cases of the novel virus for Monday, February 22 were reported in a post on the disease control agency’s Twitter handle on Wednesday morning at exactly 12:01 am, Naija News reports.