February 22nd local time, Chikwe Iheakwazu, director of the Nigerian Centers for Disease Control (NCDC), said in Abuja that a new variant of the COVID-19 virus called B.1.525 had been found in the country.
“On November 23 last year, a new variant of COVID-19 called B.1.525 was first discovered in a sample taken from a patient in Lagos State, which has spread to several other countries,” Ikowizu said at the weekly briefing of the Nigerian President’s special class on the coronavirus response on the same day.
It has not been listed as a variant virus worth paying attention to.
A statement from the Nigeria Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that so far, five states have found cases of B.1.525 variant virus in Nigeria, and also cases of infection among Nigerian tourists in other countries.
Researchers and scientists are trying to understand the contagiousness, severity, the body’s immunity to it, and whether the variant virus will affect the diagnosis and approved vaccine, Ikovezou said.
It is reported that the B.1.525 coronavirus variant contains a genetic variant’s called E484K, which has been found in Brazil, South Africa, Denmark and the United States.
It is reported that as of February 22, a total of 152,616 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Nigeria, 1,862 deaths, and 129,300 have been cured.
