Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, on Wednesday confirmed its first cases of the new Covid-19 variant, saying it had been found among three passengers who had travelled to South Africa. West African neighbour Ghana also said it had recorded the new Omicron variant, tracing cases to Nigeria and South Africa. “Genomic surveillance has now identified and confirmed Nigeria’s first cases of the B.1.1.529 SARS-CoV-2 lineage, now known as the Omicron variant,” said the head of Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control, Ifedayo Adetifa. “Omicron is widespread globally… Therefore, it is a matter of when not if, we will identify more cases,” he said. Ghana’s director-general of health services, Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said its cases had been detected at Accra’s international airport, mainly coming from South Africa and Nigeria.

Source: The Guardian December 02, 2021 02:50 UTC