Yuletide: NCDC Warns Of Likely Covid-19 Infection Rise

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, has predicted that Nigeria will possibly witness an increase in COVID-19 cases and a decrease in hospitalisation over the holiday season this year.

Adetifa, in an interview, stated that the increase in travel over the holiday season might result in a rise in cases.

According to him, “We are prepared to see that there may be a bump in cases just because of the increase in travel and the number of people returning. What we may not expect to see is an increasing number of people who are sick.”

The NCDC boss said vaccination and previous COVID-19 infections provided some degrees of immunity.

“The population has quite a bit of immunity due to vaccination, previous COVID-19 infection, or repeated COVID-19 infection. So. COVID-19 is not new. The Omicron is not new like it was in November (2021).

“If you look at our numbers, we haven’t lost people for a while. Even if every single death is a great disaster for people’s families or friends, it’s not anything like the Delta variant when we had a big problem,” he said.

He added that the Omicron variant was the dominant strain in the country.

He stated, “Omicron took over as the dominant variant in November and December last year, and it has refused to go anywhere. Other minor variants have emerged, but Omicron remains the most dominant.”