Coronavirus Variant: UK COVID-19 Strain Now In Nigeria – PTF

Coronavirus Variant: UK COVID-19 Strain Now In Nigeria – PTF.

On Monday, the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, revealed the cases of B117 strain of COVID-19 have been recorded in Nigeria.

The strain was first reported in the United Kingdom and South Africa.

During the task force briefing on Monday, the SGF stated made this known.

Mustapha noted that four people have been diagnosed with the B117 strain in Nigeria.

He noted that three among the affected people are travelers from Nigeria to other places while the fourth person was discovered in-country.

 “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 said.

The SGF called on Nigerians and school owners to take all precautionary measures against COVID-19.

He said in the last seven days 58,974 tests have been conducted, 11,179 cases recorded, 19.0 per cent tested positive, 62 deaths recorded, case fatality ratio starts at 0.6 per cent, and there are 23,568 active cases.

Mustapha said, “All these numbers represent increases from the previous seven days and we are looking at taking further public health containment measures in Local Government Areas that are considered a high burden.”

 “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 turnaround 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.”