Coronavirus: What's happening in Canada and around the world on Wednesday

The latest:

Nigeria has detected its first case of the omicron coronavirus variant in a sample it collected in October, weeks before South Africa alerted the world about the variant last week, the country's national public health institute said Wednesday.

It is the first West African country that has recorded the omicron variant since scientists in southern Africa detected and reported it and adds to a list of nearly 20 countries where the variant has been recorded, triggering travel bans across the world.

Genomic sequencing of positive cases of COVID-19 among incoming international travellers has confirmed an omicron case dating back to October, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control said in a statement issued by its director general. Nigeria has also identified two cases of the omicron variant among travellers who arrived from South Africa last week,

"Retrospective sequencing of the previously confirmed cases among travellers to Nigeria also identified the omicron variant among the sample collected in October 2021," Nigeria CDC Director General Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa said.

Federal officials in Canada on Tuesday announced that Nigeria had been added to the list of countries facing travel restrictions. As of Wednesday, foreign nationals who have been to any of the 10 listed African countries "within the previous 14 days will not be permitted entry into Canada," a statement from the federal government said.

Much remains unknown about the new variant, including whether it is more contagious, as some health authorities suspect, whether it makes people more seriously ill, and if it can thwart vaccines.

The Nigeria CDC urged the country's states and the general public to be on alert and called for improved testing amid concerns that Nigeria's low testing capacity might become its biggest challenge in the face of the new variant.

Testing for the virus is low in many states and even in the nation's capital, Abuja. For instance, in parts of Kuje, a suburb of Abuja, Musa Ahmed, a public health official, told The Associated Press that no one has been tested for the virus for weeks.

The detection of the omicron variant in Africa's most-populous nation, with 206 million people, coincides with Nigeria's new requirement that all federal government employees must be inoculated or present a negative COVID-19 test result done in the last 72 hours.

The new variant has caused concern as its mutations could potentially reduce the effect of vaccines, though it would take weeks to determine that.

Amid global concern over the omicron variant, the Nigeria CDC director general told reporters that the country remains on alert in the face of the emerging crisis. 

A slew of nations moved to ban travellers from many countries, especially southern African nations in the aftermath of the emergence of the omicron variant. But the move has been widely condemned by many, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is currently in Nigeria on a two-day visit.

-From The Associated Press, Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 7 a.m. ET