Nigeria may be in for a big shock as a new coronavirus variant has been reportedly detected in the country, reports ITREALMS.
Disclosing this, the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, declared “It’s a separate lineage from the UK and South Africa.”
He also said the Nigeria CDC and the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in that country will analyse more samples, before final pronouncement could be made.
“Give us some time. It’s still very early,” he said.
The alert about the apparent new variant was based on two or three genetic sequences, he said, but that and South Africa’s alert late last week were enough to prompt an emergency meeting of the Africa CDC this week.
The news comes as infections surge again in parts of the African continent.
The new variant in South Africa is the predominant one there, Nkengasong said, as confirmed infections in the country approach a million.
While the variant transmits quickly and viral loads are higher, it is not yet clear whether it leads to a more severe disease, he said.
“We believe this mutation will not have an effect” on the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines to the continent, he said of the South Africa variant.
Meanwhile ITREALMS gathered that Epidemiologic Week 51, that is between 14 through 20 December 2020, showed trends with 129,723 new cases and 3015 new deaths reported in Africa, which is a 10.9 per cent increase in cases and 26.2 per cent increase in deaths compared to the previous week.
In addition, ITREALMS reports that some five (5) African countries reported the highest number of new cases include South Africa (60,958), Morocco (17,516), Tunisia (9,960), Nigeria (5,259) and Egypt (3,980).
Equally, some five countries with the highest daily incidence per million population with average number of new cases per million population per day cutting across South Africa (150), Tunisia (121), Namibia (120), Libya (69), Morocco (68) and Eswatini (67).
Chuks Egbune/DoP
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