The Omicron variant the coronavirus continues to spread across the country, as the federal capital reported another 34 cases, while 11 members of a family in Karachi were found infected with the new variant during the past 24 hours.
Islamabad District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Zaeem Zia said in a statement that the Omicron tally in the capital now stands at 66. He stated that there were chances of Omicron spreading further in Islamabad, keeping in view the strain’s rapid transmission globally.
The new variant continues to replace the Delta variant, and 11 members of a family in Karachi’s District East have been found infected with it
“Experts at the Provincial Public Health Laboratory (PPHL) have detected 11 cases of Omicron variant from the samples of a family from Lahore. These samples had been collected by the Sindh Health Department, which sent them to Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), where our experts confirmed the presence of Omicron variant through Next Generation Sequencing (NGS),” DUHS Vice Chancellor Prof Saeed Quraishy said.
The DUHS, Karachi, has acquired the capability of conducting the NGS with the help of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the varsity’s Provincial Public Health Laboratory (PPHL) is now the designated lab of the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, Prof Quraishy added.
He said they would continue to carry out surveillance for the Omicron variant cases at their lab, adding that they were using the molecular genetics technique for the detection of new variants, which is not available at many other facilities in the country.
Officials of the Sindh Health Department said they had sent the samples of 20 people infected with Covid-19 to the Dow University for confirmation of the Omicron variant and after analysis, the university confirmed that 11 people of the family, who came in contact with a female member of their family from Lahore, were infected with the Omicron variant.
“We are now tracing other contacts of these people and will take their samples for analysis, but community transmission of this variant has started in the country and we have started seeing a slight surge in the cases of Covid-19 during the last two days,” an official of the Sindh Health Department said.
Prof Dr Saeed Khan, an expert of the molecular genetics and pathology at DUHS, also confirmed that they had detected 11 cases of the Omicron variant while a 12th person was also infected, but due to less viral load in the sample, they could not declare it a case of the variant with certainty.
“Community transmission of Omicron has started in Pakistan and it is now replacing the Delta variant very rapidly. As it is several times more transmissible, it would soon replace the Delta and other variants in our population,” Prof Saeed Khan said, and warned that people who were not vaccinated or those who had not received the booster dose were vulnerable to the Omicron variant infection.
Meanwhile, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiative Asad Umar on Friday said the federal government had procured corona vaccines worth Rs250 billion to make the massive drive possible.
On his official Twitter handle, Asad Umar, who is also the chairman of the National Command and Control Center (NCOC), said the vaccine procurement was done by the government, which provided free vaccine to all citizens regardless of which province they lived in.
The minister added that among the federating units, Islamabad leads with 77 per cent fully vaccinated.
Punjab followed with 51 per cent Gilgit-Baltistan with 46 per cent, Azad Jammu and Kashmir with 45 per cent, Balochistan with 42 per cent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 41 per cent and Sindh with 37 per cent.
“Of the total eligible population, 46 per cent was fully vaccinated and 63 per cent has received at least one dose,” he added.
