By The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has announced the detection of the first case of the Omicron COVID-19 variant in the country.
NCDC Director-General, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa made this known in a statement on Wednesday morning.
According to the disease control agency, two cases of the new COVID-19 variant were discovered through genomic sequencing, linking them to two passengers from South Africa .
“In line with the routine travel tests required of all international travellers and genomic sequencing at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control through its National Reference Laboratory, Abuja, confirms Nigeria’s first case of the Omicron variant,” the NCDC said.
First reported by South Africa and first confirmed in Botswana, the Omicron variant is the new strain of the coronavirus.
As part of measures to contain its spread, countries including United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, among others have since imposed travel bans countries in Southern Africa.
Canadian authorities also recently announced that two cases of the variant was detected in two travellers who visited Nigeria.
