New COVID-19 variant has been discovered in Nigeria and 15 Other Countries - NCDC Raises Alarm

Following the discovery of a new COVID-19 variant, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has warned Nigerians to be at alert.

Fifteen other countries have also detected the new variant. However, the new strain, B.1.2.5, which is different from the highly infectious strain B.1.1.7, has not yet been described as a concern.

Revealing this at the COVID-19 briefing of the Presidential Task Force on Monday, February 22, in Abuja, NCDC Director-General Chikwe Ihekweazu said that researchers and scientists were still working hard to understand whether the variant had any impact on the transmissibility, immunity, diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics of the virus.

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“As we shared, a total of 54 cases with the B.1.1.7 variant strain, which is a variant of concern first described in the UK, have been detected in Nigeria. There is a new variant, the B.1.2.5, which we have begun to detect in Nigeria and 15 other countries. It is important to note that this variant has not been described as a variant of concern yet.

Researchers and scientists are still working hard to understand if this variant has any effect on the virus transmissibility, immunity, as well as diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics. This is because the variant has some similar mutations with the B.1.1.7, B.1.351 and P.1 variants first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, respectively,” he said.