50 per cent of COVID-19 positive cases in Nigeria from UK – FG

The Nigerian government has said that 50 per cent of the COVID-19 positive arrivals that the country has had are from the UK.

Minister of Health Dr Osagie Ehanire said this while faulting the UK government for red-listing Nigeria and other African countries over fears of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.

Ehanire described the ban as a hasty decision in an interview on Channels Television.

He said, “We regularly have travellers from the UK that are COVID-19 positive. In fact, within the last two weeks, the COVID-19 positive arrivals were 50 per cent from the UK.

“There is genetic sequencing going on; we shall have the results soon. We do not know how many of them are Omicron variants. But if every country should put other countries on a ban list because there are 21 cases in that country, very soon, you’ll have a large number of countries on your red list.

The health minister stated that there are other ways to go about this COVID-19 variant than banning flights from African countries.

“I believe that there are other ways to go about it, and we in Nigeria don’t regard banning flights and movement of people as particularly helpful,” Ehanire said.