Nigeria Records 10 Cases Of Covid-19 Delta Variant – NCDC

Nigeria has so far recorded 10 new cases of the Delta COVID-19 variant.

The Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu said this at the ministerial briefing on COVID-19 in Abuja.

It was reported that the Delta variant is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a variant of concern, given its increased transmissibility.

The variant has been detected in over 90 countries.

Ihekweazu, while giving an update on Nigeria’s COVID-19 situation, said that while progress had been made in response to the ongoing pandemic with the fact-paced development of diagnostic, therapeutic, and vaccines globally, variants of concern with increased transmissibility pose a threat.

“With sequencing efforts, we have detected 10 cases which are confirmed to be the Delta variant.

”We are working hard to ensure genomic surveillance of travellers’ samples and to scale up our genomic sequencing capacity.

“While doing this, we are scaling up our testing capability, by the rollout of rapid Diagnostic Test Kits (RTDs), in selected states nationwide.

“As we have mentioned before, we encourage congregate settings, such as hospitals, schools, workplaces and correctional facilities, to take advantage of the WHO, approved RTDs kits to detect cases promptly,” he explained.

Ihekweazu maintained that Lagos state continued to have the highest contribution to the current caseload in the country.

He noted that states which have recently recorded increases in cases include Akwa Ibom, Ekiti, Oyo and Rivers states.