Pakistan has detected its first case of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Official stated Thursday the an infection was present in a 57-year-old unvaccinated lady in Karachi, the nation’s largest metropolis and capital of the southern Sindh province.
Native media reported the affected person, who was isolating at residence after being discharged from the hospital a day earlier, didn’t have a journey historical past and make contact with tracing was below manner.
“We’ve got not but concluded the genomic research of the affected person’s pattern however the best way the virus is behaving, it looks like it’s omicron,” provincial Well being Minister Azra Fazal Pechuno stated in a video assertion.
Pechuno stated individuals needn’t panic and urged them to get totally vaccinated in opposition to the coronavirus.
“Omicron is extremely transmissible, however deaths or critical sicknesses haven’t been seen in studies from South Africa,” the place the variant was first detected, she added.
Late final month, Pakistan positioned an entire ban on journey from six African nations, together with South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini — previously referred to as Swaziland, Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia, and Hong Kong after the invention of omicron.
Authorities later prolonged the ban to 9 extra nations, together with Croatia, Hungary, Netherlands, Ukraine, Eire, Slovenia, Vietnam, Poland and Zimbabwe, and tightened monitoring of passengers arriving from a number of different nations.
Pakistan, a rustic of about 220 million individuals, has reported near 1.3 million coronavirus circumstances, together with greater than 28,800 deaths.
As of Thursday, officers stated greater than 24% of the entire inhabitants and 35% of the eligible inhabitants had been vaccinated in opposition to the pandemic.
