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.
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.
