No proof Indian COVID variant present in Pakistan — health chief

Men eat ice cream in a closed market during a nine-day nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Rawalpindi on May 16, 2021. (AFP)

• All inbound and outbound travelers being tested to prevent spread of India variant to Pakistan, Dr. Faisal Sultan says
• Director General Health says “just a matter of time” before Indian variant reaches most countries, including Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani health chief Dr. Faisal Sultan has said there is no evidence that a coronavirus variant presently wreaking havoc in India was present in Pakistan, local media reported on Monday.
For months now, nowhere in the world has been hit harder than India by the pandemic, as a new strain of the virus fueled a surge in infections that has risen to more than 400,000 daily. Daily deaths remain above 4,000.
Even with a downturn over the past few days, experts say there was no certainty that infections had peaked, with alarm growing both at home and abroad over the highly contagious B.1.617 variant first found in India.
“We don’t have documentation,” Faisal told a local newspaper when asked if the Indian variant was present in India. “Yet, to exclude anything in a country of 220 million is impossible.”
“We have reduced inbound air traffic by 80 percent and we are asking all passengers to get tested before boarding while they are also being tested on arrival,” the health chief said. “We are keeping those testing positive in quarantine to ensure the variant dubbed as triple mutant or Indian variant does not manage to get into Pakistan.”
Earlier this month, Thailand barred the entry of foreign nationals from Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh in a bid to keep out the highly contagious variant of the coronavirus first found in India, its foreign ministry said. The measure followed the detection of the variant in two Thai nationals returning from Pakistan during testing conducted in government quarantine.
Pakistan had approached Thailand’s health authorities through the International Health Regulations mechanism to seek details of a family that Thai authorities claimed had contracted the Indian variant from Pakistan, Faisal said, but had not been provided any details so far.
Director General Health Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar also said the Indian variant had not reached Pakistan yet but warned that it was “just a matter of time” before it spread to most countries in the world, including Pakistan.
“We have not seen the triple mutant ... yet in Pakistan so far largely due to natural travel barrier,” Safdar said. “But risk is enormous as this variant has already spread to almost 50 countries, including our region. The pace at which it is spreading is alarming. For all countries, it’s just a matter of time.”
Several health experts are urging the government to ban all direct and indirect flights from the United Kingdom as well as Gulf states to prevent the entry of the Indian variant into Pakistan, which has been declared a ‘variant of concern’ and a global health risk by the World Health Organization.