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ISLAMABAD – Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar on Monday warned of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and stressed for more effective vaccinations to reduce threat of the new “dangerous and fast transmissible” strain.
He said that the new variant would inevitably come to Pakistan due to interconnected nature of the world but the danger could be contained through “effective vaccination.”
“We have only two to three weeks left for more vaccinations to reduce its threat,” the federal minister said while addressing a televised joint press conference along with Special Assistant to PM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan.
Umar, who also heads National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), said that the forum in its meeting has taken some important decisions to reduce threat of the new variant and cautioned that initial reports suggest that it was “very dangerous.” “We are again going for increased testing in high-risk areas, and contact tracing system is being rejuvenated,” he said adding that testing had been reduced, in some provinces, due to the decrease in positivity rate of the infection. “Now we have to make this system (of testing, and contact-tracing system) more effective and utilize more resources,” he said.
The planning minister said that the government had already imposed travel restrictions on those countries that were directly affected due to the new variant but the NCOC has decided to take some more steps so that new variant could be contained and its entry into Pakistan could be delayed.
Reinforced vaccination campaign to start this week
“We can delay the entry of the variant into Pakistan and reduce the number of infections but this has to spread in the whole world because as we saw before that when a variant comes, the world is so interconnected that it is impossible to stop it,” the minister said.
The vaccination is the only solution to curb the threat, he said adding that the initial analysis suggested that vaccination would be effective against this dangerous variant.
Giving details about the government’s vaccination campaign, the minister said as many 50 million population of the country had been completely vaccinated, while 30 million people had been got one dose of the Covid-19 vaccines.
“I appeal to these 30 million Pakistanis to visit vaccination centers immediately and get their second dose,” he suggested. This is the only way either to reduce the threat or to save ourselves from it, he also said. He said that the government was already going to launch a major vaccination campaign nationwide in next two to three days.
The federal minister said that the NCOC in the meeting decided to give booster shots of Covid-19 vaccines to people of those areas who are more vulnerable to deadly disease and an announcement would be made today (Tuesday) after completion of consultations. “Vaccination is the only way to get out of this problem,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Sultan explained that the new variant was being treated as a “variant of concern” because it was spreading faster as compared to previous variants. He said that the new variant was spreading fast among those people even in developed countries including Europe who have delayed in getting themselves vaccinated.
He said that the new variant posed a danger of increased pressure on the healthcare system that could potentially lead to a shortage of beds and other medical services.
Sultan said an examination of the variant’s genetic makeup had shown numerous mutations in certain areas of virus. “These mutations have the potential of making it more dangerous or transmissible faster,” he added.
The SAPM endorsed Umar by saying that it was difficult and “nearly impossible” to stop the variant’s entry into the country. He also stressed the need to increase vaccinations.
On Saturday, Pakistan had placed a complete ban on travel from Hong Kong and six South African countries including South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia to contain the spread of new variant.
The new variant was first detected in South Africa last week causing a spike in infections of the disease in its Gauteng province.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 is showing downward trends across the country as infection cases have fallen to their lowest level in more than 20 months in Pakistan.
According to the latest data released by NCOC, 176 new cases were recorded during the last 24 hours while nine deaths were reported.
Last time, it was April 5, 2020 when country had recorded 172 cases.
At present, the positivity rate stood at 0.59 percent and is below than 1 percent for the 10th consecutive day. Also Asad Umar said that keeping in view the impending threat of the new variant of COVID-19, the government had decided to re-intensify the vaccination campaign across the country by utilising extra resources.
“The vaccination process was already going on but now we are going to escalate the process and within two or three days, a reinforced vaccination campaign would start in all the provinces to minimise threat of the new variant (Omicron),” he said.
He said the new variant was a very dangerous virus and it had potential to spread across the world. “What we can do is to at least delay the arrival of virus in Pakistan by taking prompt actions,” he added.
He said by taking prompt actions during coming few weeks, the government would be able to reduce the threat of the new virus to minimum level.