Daily Times

Islamabad has reported the first case of the new Covid-19 strain, Omicron, According to National Institute of Health (NIH) the patient has no international travel history; nonetheless, the patient recently travelled to Karachi.

The patient reportedly is in good health and has only minor symptoms. Contact tracing is currently being done to detect more cases, the NIH said Saturday. District Health Officer Dr Zaeem Zia said the patient has no international travel history; nonetheless, the patient recently travelled to Karachi. He said that healthcare staff are ready to deal with the Omicron variant. He urged citizens to exercise caution and get vaccinated.

According to Dr Zia, citizens who are eligible for the booster shot should get one.

It is pertinent to note that six more Omicron cases were reported in Karachi on Friday taking the total number of infections in the city to eight. According to the reports, the suspected patients have a travel history. Four of them came from South Africa, where the Omicron variation was first detected, while, two others came from the United Kingdom. They said that the suspected patients’ samples had been sent to a hospital for confirmation and that the patients had been moved to a quarantine centre. On Tuesday, 12 suspected cases of coronavirus’ Omicron variant were reported in Balochistan. Their samples were sent to the National Institute of Health in Islamabad for confirmation of the variant’s presence after gene-sequencing.

Pakistan reported its first suspected case of the Omicron variant on December 8. Following its gene-sequencing, Aga Khan University Hospital confirmed it as the new variant on Dec 13.

Last month, Federal Planning Minister Asad Umar and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan had sounded the alarm, saying that the arrival of the Omicron variant was inevitable and a matter of time.