ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has ramped up its vaccination campaign and coronavirus monitoring over the emergence of the omicron COVID-19 variant, a top health official said on Friday, denying reports the new strain has been detected in the country.
Much remains unknown about the omicron strain, which was first detected in southern Africa last month and has been found in at least two dozen countries since. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries to boost health care capacity and vaccinate people to fight a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the new variant.
Health authorities in Pakistan’s Sindh province on Thursday reported first suspected case of the omicron strain in an unvaccinated 65-year-old woman in the southern port city of Karachi.
“No confirmed cases [of omicron strain] as yet, but few suspected cases are under investigation from Karachi and Islamabad,” Pakistan’s Health Director-General Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar told Arab News.
“While genome sequencing results will be available early next week. We are ramping up outreach vaccination and vigilantly monitoring clustering or atypical cases for earliest detection and requisite NPI (Non-pharmaceutical Interventions) implementation.”
For travelers from countries with confirmed omicron cases, the South Asian nation has put special screening and quarantine measures in place, according to the official.
Last month, Pakistani Planning Minister Asad Umar and Pakistani PM’s aide on health Dr. Faisal Sultan sounded the alarm, saying the arrival of omicron variant was inevitable and a matter of time. The Sindh government issued new guidelines applicable from December 1 to 15 to curb COVID-19 transmission in the wake of the threat posed by the new strain.
This week, Pakistan’s top pandemic response body, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), banned arrivals from nine more countries and tightened restrictions on 13 others.
Infectious diseases experts, however, view the strategy to ban arrivals counterproductive and have cautioned the government and the public to follow precautions along with improved surveillance and early detection mechanism.
“omicron has spread very quickly in many countries of the world. Closing borders and travel restrictions have not proven to be effective in preventing country-to-country spread,” Professor Dr. Bushra Jamil, president of the Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan, told Arab News.
Asked about the chances of presence of new variant due to non-detection, Jamil said: “Yes [It is possible]. But it was not late detection and omicron is not confirmed yet. Confirmation of cases based on genome sequencing is in process and results are pending, only genomic results can confirm that whether it was omicron.”
The current number of infections was very low, she said, adding that vaccination and other measures should be observed to avoid the spread of the new variant.
But Dr. Rana Jawad Asghar, chief executive officer of Global Health Strategists and Implementers, believes that omicron may have already spread in Pakistan as the country didn’t do much genomic testing.
“As an epidemiologist, I think it will be already present here like 70 other countries as we do fewer genomic tests,” Asghar told Arab News.
Only enhanced disease detection and control systems with enhanced genomic surveillance can help control the spread of omicron, he said.
Dr. Shobha Luxmi, an infectious diseases assistant professor at Karachi’s Dow University of Health Sciences, said the disease transmission was controlled so far and a better public response could help prevent its spread.
“We see very few COVID cases nowadays. I think the responsibility for controlling its spread lies with public,” Luxmi said.
She said the main issue was the lack of precautions on the part of people as the government was doing its share. “The only way to prevent its spread is by wearing mask and maintaining social distance.”
