BREAKING: Canada detects two cases of Omicron COVID-19 Variant from 2 travellers to Nigeria

Ilesanmi AdekanbiNovember 29, 2021

2 minutes read

Canada has reported that it has detected its first cases of the new Omicron strain of COVID in two people who had travelled recently to Nigeria.

The government of Ontario confirmed that the two cases are in the capital, Ottawa.

Federal and Ontario provincial officials said both patients are in isolation while public health authorities trace their possible contacts.

“I was informed today by the Public Health Agency of Canada that testing and monitoring of COVID-19 cases has confirmed two cases of the Omicron variant of concern in Ontario,” Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said in a statement.

“As the monitoring and testing continue, it is expected that other cases of this variant will be found in Canada,” he was quoted as saying by France24.com.

o reduce the transmission of the Omicron variant and out of an abundance of caution, Ottawa Public Health has therefore advised individuals who have been in Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Namibia, within 14 days before arriving in Ottawa, and members of their households to immediately self-isolate even if fully vaccinated.

The World Health Organization has listed Omicron as a “variant of concern” and countries around the world are now restricting travel from southern Africa, where the new strain was first detected and taking other new precautions.

The WHO says it could take several weeks to know if there are significant changes in transmissibility, severity, or implications for Covid vaccines, tests, and treatments.

On Friday, Canada banned travel from seven African countries over concerns about the spread of the Omicron strain. Nigeria was not one of them.

But the Federal Government of Nigeria had claimed that the new COVID-19 variant was not in Nigeria yet.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, in a press statement explained that the NCDC was prioritising sequencing of recently accrued samples from SARS-COV-2 positive travellers from all countries, especially those from countries that have reported the Omicron variant already.

To beat the Omicron variant, Adetifa tasked all states to ensure that sample collection and testing are accessible, to enable travellers and people with symptoms or who have been exposed to COVID-19 cases to get tested promptly.

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According to him, a total of 126 genomes of this variant have been detected globally but no deaths had been attributed to the new variant yet.

He explained that with the high number of mutations present in the Omicron variant and the exponential rise in COVID-19 cases observed in South Africa, the virus was considered highly transmissible and may also present an increased risk of reinfection compared to other VOCs.

The DG, however, stated that the fears about its ability to evade protective immune responses and being vaccine-resistant are only theoretical, noting that the virus can still be detected with existing Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.

He urged the populace to make every use of the currently available opportunities to get vaccinated against COVID-19, adhere to public health and social measures that have been proven to help prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection regardless of the circulating variant.