By Lawal Adenike
Reactions have trailed the detection of three cases of Omicron, a new strain of coronavirus in Nigeria.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), on Wednesday, announced the cases of the strain, saying it was detected in three persons with travel history to South Africa.
This came barely three days after Canadian authorities detected cases of the variant in two travellers who recently visited Nigeria.
In a statement, the NCDC director general, Ifedayo Adetifa said, “These cases were recent arrivals in the country in the past week. Follow up to ensure isolation, linkage to clinical care, contact tracing and other relevant response activities have commenced. Arrangements are also being made to notify the country where travellers originated according to the provisions of the International Health Policy.”
However, expressing concern about the risk of community transmission of the variant in the country, a professor of medical virology at the University of Maiduguri, Mercylin Baba, in an interview with PUNCH, faulted plans of the NCDC to engage in contact tracing, describing such move as a “futile adventure” and a “waste of time”.
He said, “Engaging in contact tracing a week after the samples were taken is a futile adventure and simply a waste of time. Contact tracing has never been effective. Do you know the number of places the person has been to ? The variant is already in circulation and there is a high risk of community infections but how will we even know when we do not even engage in community testing?
“At this point, we need to increase community testing, make sure that people are fully vaccinated. This is not just for civil servants alone but for all calibres of people. Also, it is important that we may continue to witness several mutations if we continue to have vaccination gap.”
Affirming Baba’s argument, another professor of virology, Georgina Odaibo of the University of Ibadan explained the need to increase the rate of vaccination.
“Just as I suspected the virus has been found in the country and if the information we are getting is correct. It simply implies that the virus has been with us for a while.
“This strain has several mutations. The effects are not known; whether they are virulent or less virulent, no one really knows. This is not the time to let our guards down. Yes, contact tracing is good, but is it effective ? At this point we need to increase the rate of vaccination,” the university don said.
Meanwhile, the detection of the new cases of Omicron has enlisted Nigeria among the countries banned from Canada.
The ban was confirmed by the Canadian health minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, in an interview with Sputnik News Agency.
He said, “We are adding three countries to the list of these countries that we talked about last Friday, these are Malawi, Egypt and Nigeria.”
Duclos added that all travellers coming from outside Canada, apart from the United States, would now be tested at Canadian airports for the novel coronavirus disease, regardless of vaccination status.
