Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Ifedayo Adetifa, said the threat of the COVID-19 virus remains within countries and globally, particularly for high-risk groups.
He said this yesterday, against Friday’s declaration by the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Ghebreyesus, that COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency of international concern.
Adetifa, in a statement, said the declaration was to enable countries’ transition from acute emergency response to managing COVID-19 as part of integrated healthcare delivery for all infectious diseases.
“As transmission continues within communities, the risk of new variants emerging and resulting in surges in case numbers and even deaths remains,” he stated.
He said the declaration was made after a careful review of current evidence that showed there was high population-level immunity from the SARS-CoV-2 infection, improved knowledge of the virus and management of confirmed COVID-19 cases, a decline in the global burden of the virus, and a steady increase in vaccine uptake across countries.
He said Nigeria had already de-escalated its COVID-19 response since 2022 in response to local epidemiology. It focused on encouraging COVID-19 vaccination and recommended the discretionary use of face masks and other public health safety measures according to personal risk assessments.
He said that as part of its integrated disease surveillance strategy, the NCDC continued to encourage routine COVID-19 testing along with other infectious diseases, as might be indicated in healthcare settings as part of clinical care for pandemic flu preparedness.
