The Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has called for calm that the COVID-19 variant has not been detected in Nigeria, assuring that there is no need for “unnecessary anxiety and panic”.
The NCDC further assured that it’s monitoring the subvariants—descendants of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, named EG.5 and BA.2.86.
This assurance was made on Saturday via a statement issued by its Director General, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa.
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The World Health Organization has designated the EG.5 variant, a descendant of XBB.1.9.2 (which is a descendent of Omicron), as a “variant of interest” (VOI).
WHO also stated that it conducted a risk assessment and determined that the new variant poses “a low risk at the global level.”
It added that as of August 7, 2023, the EG.5 has been reported in fifty-one (51) countries, including China, the United States of America, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Spain, and others.
According to the WHO, “EG.5 has not been associated with any change in symptoms/clinical manifestation, and has not produced an increase in the severity of illness and/or hospitalizations, or difference in death rates in reporting countries.”
The NCDC on its part further explained that the variant of interest causes symptoms similar to those reported with other COVID-19 variants, such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, weariness, muscle aches, headache, and sore throat, with just one case of the VOI seen in Africa; however, it has not been detected in Nigeria.
NCDC noted that the newly reported BA.2.86 is a descendent lineage of BA.2 ; a sublineage of Omicron was also found in Nigeria in 2022.
“As of August 23, 2023, the BA.2.86 variant had been reported in a handful of countries – the United Kingdom, Israel, Denmark, South Africa, and the United States.
“It has been classified by the WHO as a “variant under monitoring” (VUM) because it has multiple genetic differences that make it substantially different from its ancestor, BA.2 and from other currently circulating XBB-derived SARS-CoV-2 variants.
“Since there are few cases identified so far, there is not enough information to make conclusive assessments of virulence, transmission, and severity.
“However, we do not expect it to be much different from other omicron descendants currently circulating.
“Although the ancestor, BA.2 has been previously found in Nigeria, no BA.2.86 variant has been identified in Nigeria, ” the statement further read.
NCDC added that its COVID- 19 Technical Working Group(COVID-19 TWG) is closely monitoring the COVID- 19 epidemiology at the local, regional, continental and the global level including the emerging variants.
It reassured that it is working with its partners to execute an expanded COVID-19 testing exercise in four states in order to acquire complementary and more specific information about circulating variants in the country.
It urged individuals and media practitioners to act responsibly and distribute only verifiable information, stating that “there is no need to cause unnecessary anxiety and panic.”
It said that COVID-19 “is here to stay” and a concern for those at high risk – the elderly, those with underlying chronic illnesses especially hypertension, diabetes, those on cancer treatment, organ transplant recipients and those whose immune systems are suppressed for one reason or the other.
It however informed that, “Our influenza sentinel surveillance sites continue to provide information on COVID-19 prevalence in patients with influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory illness.
“We have not observed any increase in the trend of COVID-19 in this patient group.
“We continue to carry out genomics surveillance even with the low testing levels and encourage testing locations in states to ensure their positive samples are sent on to the NCDC for sequencing,” it said.