The UK COVID-19 variant strain has been found in Nigeria, as stated by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19.
Dsiclosing this development was the Chairman of the PTF, Boss Mustapha, on Monday, in Abuja.
Mustapha, who is also the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), noted that the variant was noticed in four people, three of which are travellers leaving Nigeria, while the other one was a resident.
He said, “Over the last few weeks, the PTF has been closely following the rising number of infections reported daily in Nigeria and in other jurisdictions. Similarly, our scientists have been sequencing the variants of the virus.
“There have been reports of cases with the B117 variant strain, first reported in the UK, found in Nigeria. Three of these were in travellers out of Nigeria and one a resident.”
He urged all Nigerians to continue to protect themselves and “stay very safe”.
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He said, “The PTF, therefore, wishes to appeal strongly to all Nigerians to take responsibility and stay very safe. In this regard, I also wish to remind all parents, grandparents, everyone with underlying factors and particularly school proprietors that all precautionary measures must be taken at home and in the schools when managing the pupils and students. The PTF will continue to work with the Federal Ministry of Education around the reopening of schools
“The management of cases is gradually improving with the availability of medical oxygen. Government is also fast-tracking the rehabilitation of existing plants and construction of new ones as approved by the President.
“The PTF has advanced in the deployment of resources for the national testing week and continues to review the bottlenecks affecting the turn around time for testing.
“The effort to access and deploy vaccines is progressing and as already announced by COVAX, the initial 100,000 doses Nigeria is expecting will now arrive in the early weeks of February.
“We wish to assure all Nigerians that the vaccines will be safe and effective when eventually it is deployed. We enjoin everyone to join in the campaign to eliminate vaccine hesitancy.”
The COVID-19 strain variant was first discovered in the United Kingdom and South Africa.
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