The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) said the country will sustain testing even though the World Health organisation (WHO) declared that COVID-19 is no more a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).
In a news release issued on Sunday, Ifedayo Adetifa, the Director-General of the NCDC, stated that the organization would continue include COVID-19 testing and treatment alongside other infectious diseases as a component of clinical care for pandemic flu preparedness.
Adetifa stated that COVID-19 research might be conducted in high-risk communities along with tests for HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria.
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The WHO at a press conference on Friday declared the end of COVID-19 as a public health emergency after three years.
The Director-General of WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, said the global health body’s international health regulations emergency committee made the decision at its 15th meeting on Thursday.
“Yesterday, the Emergency Committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern.
“It’s therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 a global health emergency,” he said.
Ghebreyesus noted that the declaration did not mean COVID-19 was completely over.
The virus was first declared a public health emergency of international concern by the WHO chief on January 30, 2020.
He noted that the virus was here to stay and still killing and changing: “The risk remains of new variants emerging that cause new surges in cases and deaths.”
The committee suggested that it is time to move on to long-term management of the COVID-19 pandemic notwithstanding the continuing uncertainty caused by a possible evolution of SARS-CoV-2.
The WHO chief noted that mortality rates had dropped and that pressure on overburdened health systems had eased.
In December 2019, an epidemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan led to the discovery of the new virus. There were failed attempts to contain it, which allowed the virus to spread to parts of Asia and eventually other parts of the world.
According to the WHO’s global report as of May 2023, 765,222,932 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were recorded, and approximately 7 million people died from the virus globally, with more than 13.3 billion vaccines administered as of April 30, 2023.
In Nigeria, between 3 January 2020 and 3 May 2023, there were 266,675 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 3,155 fatalities. According to WHO, 116,606,863 vaccination doses have been given as of March 19, 2023.
In the statement, the NCDC stated that Nigeria had already de-escalated its COVID-19 response since 2022 in response to local epidemiology, which emphasizes the promotion of COVID-19 vaccination and suggests the discretionary use of face masks and other public health safety measures based on individual risk assessments.
In addition to the decision, it was reported that efforts had been made to use the pandemic response to enhance national health security by strengthening the health system, enhancing public health emergency management training, modernizing labs and other facilities, and strategically emphasizing improved emergency planning and preparedness at the state and local government levels.
“The declaration that COVID-19 is no longer PHEIC is to enable countries’ transition from acute emergency response to managing COVID-19 as part of integrated healthcare delivery for all infectious diseases.
“The threat of the virus remains within countries and globally and particularly for high-risk groups. As transmission continues within communities, the risk of new variants emerging and resulting in surges in case numbers and even deaths remains.”
The NCDC announced that it was experimenting with pan-respiratory viral surveillance in collaboration with partners, in line with the WHO’s recently announced Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative.
“As part of our genomic surveillance, we will introduce wastewater/environmental surveillance to track not just SARS-CoV-2 but antimicrobial resistance, Mpox, and typhoid (salmonella). Finally, we continue to work on consolidating COVID-19 pandemic laboratory investments into a cohesive tiered national network of public health laboratories as prescribed in the NCDC Act (2018).
“With the continued emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases, our frequent and often concurrent disease outbreaks, and public health investments made during the pandemic to ensure health security in the country will need to be sustained” the statement read.