Pakistan ‘successfully’ tackling Omicron XBB subvariant since October, says NCOC

Health workers inoculate men with a dose of the COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine in Islamabad, Pakistan, on January 4, 2022. (AFP/File)

• The country has fully vaccinated over 90 percent of eligible population, bringing infection rate to less than one percent
• Pakistan reported two deaths related to COVID-19 in a single day after a hiatus of more than a month during this week

ISLAMABAD: An official of Pakistan’s central pandemic response body said on Thursday the country had been “successfully” dealing with COVID-19 cases driven by a highly contagious Omicron subvariant XBB since October and there was no need for extra measures since the situation was under control.
The coronavirus positivity ratio in the country has remained less than one percent since July 2022 since the government says it has fully vaccinated more than 132 million people which constitute over 90 percent of its eligible population.
According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Pakistan reported zero deaths and 33 virus cases in the last 24 hours, with a positivity ratio of 0.84 percent. However, it recorded two deaths on Wednesday after a hiatus of about a month, causing some concern among people.
Pakistan has also started screening international travelers after the spread of a sub-variant of Omicron — known as BF.7 — in China, which has also been detected in Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark, and the United States.
The country has directed airport health services to isolate potential COVID-19 cases as part of effective control and prevention measures.
“During the past year, we have successfully dealt with around five different variants of COVID-19, including a sub-variant of Omicron, XBB, which is circulating since last October,” Dr. Mumtaz Ali Khan, deputy coordinator of the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) at the National Institute of Health (NIH) told Arab News.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also announced this week there was “no need for any additional and specific measures against this variant,” he continued.
“All the existing vaccines are effective and we are also [carrying out] proper surveillance to deal with any rise in the positive cases, which has not been the case so far,” Khan added.
The authorities increased random screening at all airports, he said, while genomic surveillance was also continuing.
“We are not expecting very serious issues in Pakistan due to the new variant,” the official said, “neither there has been any rise in the mortality rate in the country.”
Khan added that Pakistan had documented vaccination of over 90 percent eligible population and a majority of people had also developed natural immunity against the virus.