NCDC: COVID-19 Travel Restrictions Have No Public Health Benefits
According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the recent experiences in the country, along with the arrival of the COVID-19 omicron variants, have shown that travel restrictions do not have any public health benefits but were disruptive for persons and businesses.
Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, Director-General, NCDC, said this on his official Twitter handle while addressing Nigerians who raised concern over the rising COVID-19 cases in China, the UK, the U.S.A, and other countries.
He said that COVID-19 has and continues to follow a different course (epidemiology) in Nigeria and most African nations.
“Other Omicron progeny that was associated with increases in cases, admissions, and deaths elsewhere did not cause the same in Nigeria as confirmed by our genomics surveillance.
“Our population is significantly protected from a combination of natural infection and vaccination,” he explained.
Adetifa said that the COVID-19 Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) met on Dec. 31, 2022, noting that going forward, they would continue to review the ongoing COVID-19 situation over the coming week.
“At the next review and if deemed necessary, a range of actions, not limited to enhanced surveillance of travelers at airports, may be implemented,” he said.
The NCDC boss said that the agency follows global COVID-19 epidemiology, including genomics data, as part of the ongoing pandemic response.
Adetifa said that the NCDC COVID-19 EOC continues to function at level two alertness – including weekly risk assessments to inform the need for action.
“Our COVID-19 EOC is tracking COVID-19 trends in China, the US, UK, South Africa, India, and other destinations with high volume traffic to and from Nigeria,” he said.
The NCDC boss said that the COVID-19 resurgence in China was not surprising, given their recent transition from a zero COVID-19 strategy.
He said that this was against a backdrop of a population that neither has high levels of natural immunity nor high levels of coverage with vaccines with the greatest impact against severe disease, hospitalisation, and death.
“Cases, admissions, and deaths in England and the US have increased significantly.
Government agency data show 28.8 percent, 36.3 percent, and 1.6 percent increases in cases, admissions, and deaths as of Dec. 22, 2022, compared to the previous period.
“The Centre for Disease Control reports 57.0 percent, 23.2 percent, and 66.0 percent increases in cases, admissions, and deaths as of Dec. 22, 2022, compared to Nov. 20, 2022.
Read Also: Travel Restrictions Imposed On China As Covid-19 Cases Surge
“The National Department of Health in South Africa data shows fewer admissions in Dec 2023 vs Nov 2022 (as of 21/12/22),” he explained.
Adetifa said that before the current uptick in cases seen in China, the US, the UK, and elsewhere, genomic surveillance continued to show the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant and its lineage continued to predominate in infections worldwide.
Read Also:
“As of Dec. 3, 2022, BQ.1.1, BQ.1, BA.5, and BF.7 were responsible for 85.1 percent of cases in the US and XBB.1.5 made up 1.3 percent. For England, BA.5 (17.1%), BA.2.75 (16.6%), and BQ.1 (59.6%) were dominant (up to 27/12/22). In South Africa, BA.5 and sub-lineages dominated in Sept-Nov 2022…
“With BQ.1 increasing from Nov to Dec. 2022 and XBB detected at very low levels from Oct. 2023. On Dec 31, the CDC projections were that XBB.1.5 will make up 40.5 percent of COVID-19 cases. In England, XBB.1.5 went up quickly from Nov 2022 to about 1.9 percent of cases as of Dec. 2022,” he explained.
He said that the new omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is a source of worry as it may spread faster than older omicron sublineages.
“For example, XBB or BQ cause increases in hospitalisation when it becomes dominant. BF.7 (BA.5.2.1.7) is considered responsible for the surge in China but does not appear to be increasing elsewhere. BF.7 is also thought to be highly transmissible and sufficiently immune evading.”
“In addition, the ‘poor immune status’ of the Chinese population now exposed to high levels of transmission of a rapidly mutating virus may favour the rapid emergence of new variants of concern,” he explained.
According to him, In Nigeria, the NCDC continues with genomic surveillance. The omicron variant was first detected in Dec. 2021 and has since become the dominant strain.
He said that BQ.1/BQ.1.1 and related sublineages were first seen in Nigeria in July 2022 and BQ.1 became dominant in Aug 2022.
“BQ.1.1 took over in Sept 2022 and persisted since then. None of these was associated with any increases in case numbers, admissions, or deaths. We have not detected BF.7 or XBB.1.5 in the country yet (sequencing updates for Dec. 2022 are in progress),” he said.
He said that the Nigerian COVID-19 response continues to be executed via four pillars – continued surveillance, genomics surveillance, capacity for surge testing, and vaccination.
He said that regardless of SARS-CoV-2 variants in different parts of the world, there continues to be an excess of cases of severe disease, admissions, and deaths among the under or unvaccinated and those with established risk factors – old age, cardiovascular and endocrine co-morbidity, immune suppressive states (disease and/or treatments), and so on.
“We advise Nigerians to make use of every opportunity the Federal Government has provided via the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) to get vaccinated, that is receive your primary vaccination which can be two or a single vaccine dose. If you have received two vaccine doses already, go get your booster.
“If you have received one booster dose already, please go get your second booster dose. If you belong to any of the high-risk categories, including old age, kindly ensure you adhere to recommended public health safety measures – mask use, hand hygiene, and avoiding crowded spaces,” he advised.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that China is experiencing a nationwide outbreak of the coronavirus after abruptly easing restrictions that were in place for much of the pandemic.
Several other countries, including the US, UK, India, Japan, and a few European nations have announced tougher measures on travelers from China due to concerns over a lack of data on infections in China and fears of the possibility that new variants may emerge.
SOURCE: NAN
