To prevent the outbreak of the COVID-19 variant in Nigeria, the Federal Government (FG) has ordered for mandatory health declaration from inbound passengers over new COVID-19 XEC
The disease was recently reported in Australia and 22 other countries.
The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare gave a directive to the Committee of Chief Medical Directors and Medical Directors to activate alert systems in all hospitals over high index suspicion of COVID-like symptoms in patients.
In a report, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention confirms that filling out health declaration forms is mandatory to tackle this COVID-19 variant.
Also, the Head of the Teaching Hospitals Division, the Department of Hospital Services of the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Dr. O.N. Anuma, on December 5,2024 issued a warning notice to CMD-MD over the new variant.
The notice calls for collaboration from important stakeholders to share adequate data for effective monitoring of the COVID-19 XEC variant.
“They are filling the form; this is a strategy to know if they have any symptoms relating to SARs,” the Director, Special Duties, Office of the Director General of the NCDC, Dr. John Oladejo, stated in an interview.
NCDC noted the National COVID-19 Technical Working Group will be monitoring the situation to prevent an outbreak and acknowledged the level of their readiness.
In the last 28 days of the outbreak in the affected countries, WHO disclosed that 180,907 cases of COVID-19 and 2,665 deaths have been recorded globally to 24 November, 2024.
