Health Experts Raise Alarm Over Spike In COVID-19 Related Deaths

Health Experts Raise Alarm Over Spike In COVID-19 Related Deaths.

Health experts have raised an alarm over the surge of COVID-19 related death in January.

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The experts warn that unvaccinated persons are more susceptible to dying by COVID-19.

A report obtained from PUNCH suggest that the leading causes of increased COVID-19 deaths are:

1. Low vaccination coverage.
2. Emergence of the Omicron variant.

The leading health experts urged Nigerians to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 infection.

They said that the Omicron variant may be mild on the vaccinated but it is extreme on the unvaccinated.

The NCDC revealed that in December, there were only 42 deaths.

However, in January, fatalities have exceeded 68 deaths. This is from January 1-17.

In statistics this figure represents a 45 per cent increased in the number of COVID-19 related death.

As at Monday, January 17, 2022, fatalities from the pandemic in Nigeria is 3,103.

About 224,052 persons have recovered from the deadly virus in Nigeria. Nearly 251,000 cases have been recorded so far. These figures were pulled from the NCDC official website.

Professor of Molecular Biology and Genomics from Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria, Christian Happi spoke about the surge.

Happi said the spike in the cases and increased death could be among those not vaccinated.

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He said that the deaths could be linked to them because of their low immunity.

The Professor said:

“Omicron is mild among people that are vaccinated and Omicron can be very deadly among the unvaccinated. So that is the difference.

“If people that are not vaccinated get Omicron the disease can be very severe.

That is what we see because the vaccination coverage of Nigeria is very low. So, we may end up having more people dying of Omicron than elsewhere. because many more people are not vaccinated compared to the vaccinated.

“If you are not vaccinated, you can die of Omicron because you don’t have immunity to it.”

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Vaccinated persons in Nigeria

According to the data from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency:

12,391,384 persons have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

4,934,418 have been fully vaccinated.

This data reveal that less that 20 per cent from a population of over 200,000,000 Nigerians have been vaccinated.