The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced 25 fresh coronavirus cases in Benue State, North-Central Nigeria.
This was revealed by Ogechukwu Chigbo, the state’s WHO surveillance officer, during a one-day conference in Makurdi, the state capital, on Civil Society Organisations and Media Engagement/Orientation regarding the COVID-19 rampup.
Chigbo cautioned that COVID-19 is still prevalent in Nigeria, emphasising the need for people to take advantage of the availability of vaccines to protect themselves.
As of August, 51 nations had reported cases of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) said it was keeping an eye on the new EG.5 and BA.2.86 subvariants of the virus.
While the NCDC is yet to report the new cases in Benue State, its COVID-19 dashboard as of 13 December shows a total of 266,675 confirmed cases and 3,155 deaths recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (‘FCT).
Speaking further, Ms Chigbo noted that “there is a need to ensure that everybody gets vaccinated “because this is the period that we record outbreaks. And the reason why people are not coming down with the virus is because of the vaccine.”
“This year we recorded 25 cases in Benue, though no fatalities that is the more reason why we must all come out and get vaccinated,” she added.
She emphasized that in order to increase state coverage, the international organization has chosen to incorporate the COVID-19 vaccination into the routine immunization program.
