{"id":33865,"date":"2020-12-25T18:01:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-25T18:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\/?p=33865"},"modified":"2020-12-25T16:35:19","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T16:35:19","slug":"covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: UK variant of virus not yet in Nigeria \u2013 NCDC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\">Nigeria<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has clarified that the mutant strain of the COVID-19 virus in the UK has not been found in Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p>Iheakwazu, who made the disclosure in Abuja during the Presidential Taskforce (PTF) briefing on COVID-19 on Thursday, however, urged Nigerians to stay calm and safe.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that viruses by their very nature mutate.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the NCDC, in collaboration with the Africa Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), did some sequencing in the past but didn\u2019t find the UK variant which he described as deadlier than the original strain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver the last few days, we\u2019ve monitored reports of the virus mutating in the UK, South Africa and some other countries, but it\u2019s important to establish some facts about what we know, what we do not know and what we are willing to learn over the next few years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have not found the UK strain but it\u2019s not something we have been looking for\u2026To find that you\u2019ve to do sequencing and our focus has not been on sequencing. We did some sequencing in the past but we have not found that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, we are doing more sequencing now. Is it possible that they are circulating? Yes. This is because there are a lot of travels between the UK and Nigeria,\u201d Iheakwazu said.<\/p>\n<p>Iheakwazu said the NCDC will continue to collaborate with other stakeholders to collect new samples for sequencing in order to determine their variant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is ongoing work. It cannot happen in a hurry. It is very complex. Sequencing is not a straightforward business which is why we have only a few centres that are able to do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The NCDC boss also urged states to reopen their testing centres, saying the NCDC alone could not conduct all COVID-19 tests received from states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. The Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has clarified that the mutant strain of the COVID-19 virus in the UK has not been found in Nigeria. Iheakwazu, who made the disclosure in Abuja during the Presidential Taskforce (PTF) briefing on COVID-19 on Thursday, however, urged Nigerians to stay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":33864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29,28,14,26],"tags":[1570,2140,1585,1425,254,374],"class_list":["post-33865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-covid-19-2","tag-ncdc","tag-nigeria","tag-uk"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>COVID-19: UK variant of virus not yet in Nigeria \u2013 NCDC - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has clarified that the mutant stra ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COVID-19: UK variant of virus not yet in Nigeria \u2013 NCDC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, has clarified that the mutant stra ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-25T18:01:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2020\/12\/img-5fe614ac54e01.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1366\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"COVID-19: UK variant of virus not yet in Nigeria \u2013 NCDC\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-25T18:01:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc\"},\"wordCount\":330,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2020\/12\/img-5fe614ac54e01.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"Covid-19\",\"NCDC\",\"Nigeria\",\"UK\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"Policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/covid-19-uk-variant-of-virus-not-yet-in-nigeria-ncdc\",\"name\":\"COVID-19: UK variant of virus not yet in Nigeria \u2013 NCDC - 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