Some Public Health experts have applauded the Nigerian Federal Government’s timely alert for relevant agencies and Nigerians to step up surveillance and preventive measures against the new COVID strain XEC.
They noted that with the volume of traffic at various ports of Entry associated with Yuletide season, the highly transmissible mutant strain could easily spread.
The fast spread of the new strain has also thrown up issues about antimicrobial resistance challenge, which is rooted in mutation and adaptation process of organisms.
According to global health experts, the XEC Variant of the COVID sub-variant first appeared in Germany in June 2024 before spreading rapidly across Europe.
Though the Variant has not been recorded yet in Nigeria, the Federal Government is said to have been proactive enough to begin massive awareness as a preventive measure.
While Scientists have over the years strived for disease cure, organisms in turn have developed resistance to such solutions, a situation explained as also responsible for the continuous Variants of the COVID-19 virus.
ait.live recalls that recently, the Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC),
Professor Mojisola Adeyeye and her Denmark counterpart had raised concerns about the need for global effort to address the challenge of antimicrobial resistance.
(Editor: Ken Eseni)
