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Nigeria Records 10 Cases Of Delta COVID-19 Variant

Delta Variant Of COVID Already Dominant In Nigeria - Health Minister

Nigeria has recorded 10 cases of Delta COVID-19 variant, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) confirmed.

Gatekeepers News reports that the NCDC Director-General,  Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu made the disclosure at the ministerial briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

On July 8, 2021, Nigeria announced that the first variant was detected in a traveller to the country, following the routine travel test required of all international travellers 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. It has been detected in over 90 countries and is expected to spread to more countries.

Giving an update on Nigeria’s COVID-19 outbreak, the NCDC boss said: “With sequencing efforts, we have detected 10 cases which are confirmed to be the Delta variant.

”We are working hard to ensure genomic surveillance of travellers’ samples and to scale up our genomic sequencing capacity.

“While doing this, we are scaling up our testing capability, by the rollout of rapid Diagnostic Test Kits (RTDs), in selected states nationwide.

“As we have mentioned before, we encourage congregate settings, such as hospitals, schools, workplaces and correctional facilities, to take advantage of the WHO, approved RTDs kits to detect cases promptly.”

Represented by Elsie Ilori, Director of Disease Surveillance Department, Ihekweazu noted that the country’s test positive rate based on Polymerase Chain Reaction test alone, which he said was an indication used to understand the level of virus transmission increased to 3.4 percent in the country.

“This represents a rise compared to Test Positivity Rate which was sustained for several weeks at around 1 per cent in the country. In addition, last week five deaths were recorded.

“These figures must serve as a strong warning to be even more on our guard regarding reducing the risk of COVID-19 spread, especially considering the more transmissible Delta variants detected in the country,.”

Gatekeepers News reports that the NCDC boss stressed that Lagos State, the Southwest part of the country, remains the epicentre of the virus,

The States which have recently recorded increases in cases, according to him, include Akwa Ibom, Ekiti, Oyo and Rivers States.

“Akwa Ibom had a sudden surge in cases in the last week and so, we have deployed a Rapid Response Team, to support the state’s response activities.

“The team will support Akwa Ibom’s Emergency Operations Centre incident management systems, ensure smooth running of samples collection centres, laboratory cases detection and general coordination.”

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