By Favour Nnabugwu
Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN , said all relevant agencies in charge of health checks at the nation’s airports have been placed on high alert to prevent the importation of the new covid-19 new variant, Omicron, into the country.
This just as the civil aviation regulator, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, said it is waiting to enforce any directive from the Presidential Steering Committee on Covid-19 on measures to prevent the spread of the new variant into the country.
The General Manager, Corporate Affairs, FAAN, Mrs Herrietta Yakubu stated that the agencies and Port Health officials have been given the clear order to ensure no passengers from the affected countries enter the country unscreened.
Mrs Yakubu said : “There will be an enforcement of all the Protocols and procedures put in place for the covid-19 already on ground.”
“All the Agencies concerned and Port Health, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, FAAN ,etc have been all put on notice to ensure no passenger comes into the Country with this variant.”
Also speaking with Vanguard, the General Manager Public Affairs, NCAA, Mr Sam Adurogboye said the regulator is waiting for directives from the Presidential Committee on Covid-19.
He said all measures and directives usually come from the Committee and it directs NCAA on what to enforce. “We are waiting for the Presidential Steering Committee to issues directives on ways to prevent the spread of the new variant to Nigeria. NCAA can only enforce the federal government directives,” Adurogboye emphasised.
Recall on Sunday, the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, said in a statement that the centre is “prioritising sequencing of recently accrued samples from SARS-COV-2 positive travellers from all countries, especially those from countries that have reported the Omicron variant already.”
Though Canada said on Sunday it has detected its first cases of the new Omicron strain of Covid in two people who had travelled recently to Nigeria,
the Federal Government had claimed that the new COVID-19 variant was not in Nigeria yet.
