The African Union’s health authority called for calmness in the face of Omicron, a new, significantly evolved COVID-19 strain that has forced numerous states to implement new restrictions. It’s expected not to create panic, but awareness.
According to the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), John Nkengasong, even though they’re very concerned, they’re not worried and believe that the situation can be managed, “There is no need to panic. We are not defenseless.”
South Africa was the first to report the new variation to the World Health Organization (WHO) a week ago, and it has quickly spread throughout the globe, raising worries of another catastrophic surge of infections and signaling that the pandemic’s nearly two-year fight is far from done.
Due to this new variant, safety measures are now tightened, such as the need to always wear masks and practice social distancing, while travel restrictions, mostly targeting southern Africa, have also come into force.
As for Nigeria, they will begin receiving COVID-19 vaccine booster doses after the country verified its first cases of the Omicron variant among two visitors arriving from South Africa last week.
Now, in order to immunize 60 percent of Africa’s population and obtain some level of herd immunity, an estimated 1.5 billion vaccine doses are required. The government also intends to launch a huge campaign aimed at half of its target population by the end of January.
