Elekes Raises Alarm Over New COVID-19 Variant Discovered In Nigeria

By Onwuka Gerald

A social media influencer, who gives daily updates on COVID-19 pandemic across the world, Nobert Elekes, @NobertElekes on Thursday disclosed that a new coronavirus strain has been found in Nigeria, adding that it is different from one discovered in the United Kingdom (UK).

The self acclaimed ‘Data Storyteller’, gave the revelation on Thursday via his official Twitter handle.

His Tweet:

“New coronavirus strain found in Nigeria, different from UK variant”.

It would please you to recall that before @NobertElekes report, Africa’s Centre For Disease Control (CDC) earlier today, reported that yet another new variant of the novel coronavirus seems to have emerged in Nigeria, the agency, cautioned that more investigation needs to be carried out.

The disclosure was made during an online news conference from Addis Ababa by the Director, Africa Centres for Disease Control, John Nkengasong

According to him, “It’s a separate lineage from the UK and the South African lineages”.

He continued that the kind witnessed in Nigeria, was based on very limited data yet, has the 501 mutation,” the Director said, referring to the variant titled 501.V2 discovered in South Africa and announced by public health officials.

His words, “The Nigeria CDC and the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Nigeria will examine more samples”.

Note that despite being Africa’s most populous country, with more than 200 million people, Nigeria has seen fewer COVID-19 cases than many others in Africa.

However, a new COVID-19 variant has been ravaging Europe leading to a second lockdown in some countries like the United kingdom and Italy.