After the announcement, which was made this week with discretion, the African Center for Disease Control organized an emergency meeting to analyze the new scenario. Acegid analyzed 200 samples of the virus in early December and two of them, taken from patients on August 3 and October 9, have genetic mutations.
In this regard, Professor Christian Happi, a molecular biologist who participated in the genetic sequencing of this new variant, asked that this discovery not be “extrapolated”, that is, that hasty hypotheses should not be drawn. “We have no idea or certainty whether this variant is directly related to the increase in cases that Nigeria is currently seeing.”, he specified.
The country with 200 million inhabitants had more than 82,000 cases registered on Saturday and 1,246 deceasedFigures that, however, are relatively low but the number of tests carried out in the country is negligible. All in all, something seems to be true: the case fatality rate, relatively low in Nigeria, compared to western countries, it did not increase.
In Africa, so far, 2.4 million cases of coronavirus have been registered, that is, 3.6% of the world total. As to deceased, more than 57,000 confirmed, that is, less than in France (59,072), which is seventh in the global grid of deaths from the disease.
Thanks to the genetic sequencing of the virus, a highly sophisticated screening operation that can only be performed by 12 laboratories on the African continent, Professor Happi and his team were able to describe the evolution of the mutation.
Acegid is working with the Nigerian Infectious Diseases Center (NCDC), the national public health body, to try to explain the recent increase in Covid-19 cases and whether this could be due to the new strain.
“I ask people not to extrapolate. There is a tendency to extrapolate with these new variants of the virus,” stressed the professor. “Nothing shows us, for example, that the strain found in England would have the same effects in Nigeria” and vice versa. “If there is something that Covid-19 has taught us, it is that in everything we thought we knew about this virus, we were wrong,” Happi recalled.
“Some predicted that a third of the population of Africa would die, but we cannot apply the research and figures gathered in Europe and the United States and apply it here: we are genetically different, our immune health is different.”he insisted.
For his part, the director of the CDC of the African Union, Jhon Nkengasong, asked “time” while investigating the rate of spread of the new strain in Nigeria, during a videoconference from Addis Ababa.

Before the coronavirus disappeared, a new virus emerged, which caught researchers off guard. It is difficult to imagine what consequences this virus will have if it continues to spread. We must continue to protect it. Even though a vaccine is available, the harm of the virus must not be underestimated.