Abuja, Dec 8 (IANS): Nigerian authorities confirmed three more cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases of the variant of concern to six in the most populous African country.

All the cases so far detected in the country were persons with travel history to South Africa in November, said Ifedayo Adetifa, head of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), in a statement.

Adetifa said the public health institution will continue to coordinate genomic surveillance activities across the country to sequence all positive Covid samples from international travellers arriving in Nigeria, Xinhua news agency reported.

This, he said, includes sequencing of positive samples from international travellers from October to date.

"Nevertheless, the Delta variant remains the dominant variant and so far, we have not seen the replacement of this variant by the new Omicron variant as observed elsewhere," the official added.

Last week, the NCDC detected three imported cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in the country for the first time, becoming the first west African nation to detect the variant of concern.