COVID: We’re observing other countries — not only China, says NCDC

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says it is observing all countries with increasing COVID cases.

Ifedayo Adetifa, NCDC director-general, said this on Monday during an interview on ‘The World Today’, a programme by Channels Television.

Following a surge in China’s COVID cases, and the country’s decision to drop its strict zero-COVID policy, other countries began to impose restrictions on travellers arriving from China.

However, the federal government had said there was no reason to impose restrictions on travellers coming to Nigeria from China.

Speaking on Monday, Adetifa said while Nigerians are rightfully concerned about what is going on in China, there has also been a rise in cases in some other countries.

“When we look at the data, we are seeing upticks in cases, hospitalisation, and deaths in many countries in the world. The data shows an increase in cases in the UK, US, China and other countries,” he said.

“We are looking at risk across all countries where there is potentially travel to and fro Nigeria. The other thing we know is that there are concerns that there may be new variants; Omicron sub-variants that may also be contributing to the uptick in cases.

“I think what we need to highlight to citizens is that, as far as we are concerned at the NCDC and ministry of health, we are looking at all countries where there is potential risk, not just the spotlight placed on China because of restrictions put in other places that also have uptick in cases.”

The NCDC director-general said the agency will continue to review data weekly to determine if action needs to be taken.

“It’s a rapidly evolving situation but we haven’t seen any reason to place restrictions,” he added.