• Warns health system can collapse in weeks if new variant makes its way
• Vaccination drive to be restarted in provinces
• Studies being conducted to understand the new strain

ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Monday warned that the arrival of Omicron — said to be the most virulent strain of Covid-19 — into Pakistan was inevitable and feared that health system could collapse in the coming weeks due to its high transmissibility.

In South Africa, the positivity rate increased tenfold, from 0.9 per cent to 9.77pc, in just 12 days.

It further said that apparently genetic coding of the virus had changed but vaccines were still effective against it, suggesting that around 30 million partially-vaccinated people should get themselves inoculated at the earliest.

After the meeting of the NCOC, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar along with Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan held a press briefing.

Mr Umar said the new variant had reached a number of European and Asian countries.

“According to initial reports, it is an extremely virulent variant. In Pakistan 50 million people have been fully vaccinated and 30m are partially immunised. As the NCOC takes decisions according to the current situation, on Monday we decided to increase the number of tests in

high-risk areas and expedite contact tracing,” the minister said, adding that, “travel restrictions have been placed on some countries, with more regions to be included in the travel advisory soon”.

Mr Umar said Pakistan could delay the entry of the virus within its borders, but could not stop it.

“The world has become a global village, therefore the virus would definitely reach Pakistan,” Mr Umar said, adding that, “what we have in our hands is vaccination therefore every person should get inoculated at the earliest as vaccines were effective against the new variant”.

The minister further said they had just two to three weeks, “so we are going to start a new vaccination campaign in all provinces”.

“We have also started considering giving booster shots,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Sultan said during the last one-and-a-half years, people had been updated a number of times about the pandemic.

“However for the last few weeks, infections have continuously been increasing throughout the world, with most casualties being reported among those who could not be vaccinated,” the special assistant said.

“The new variant has been spreading rapidly, which can put pressure on the health system. It has some mutations due to which the potential of transmissibility has increased,” he added.

The prime minister’s aide said international flights were being reviewed but as the whole world was connected, it was impossible to stop transportation of the virus.

“We are left with only one option and that was to ensure every person was immunised,” he said, adding that, “we need to further increase vaccination”.

Get yourself vaccinated today not tomorrow,” Dr Sultan stressed.

It is worth mentioning here that on Nov 27, Pakistan placed South Africa, Hong Kong, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini and Botswana in category C and imposed complete ban on direct/indirect inbound travel from these countries with immediate effect.

Pakistani passengers travelling from these countries on extreme emergency will only be allowed after undergoing a number of health/testing protocols including presenting vaccination certificates, negative PCR report (72 hours old maximum) before boarding and rapid antigen tests (RAT) on arrival at the airport.

The RAT negative cases would undergo three-day mandatory home quarantine and re-RAT carried out on the third day by the civil administration.

Positive cases would have to observe a mandatory quarantine (government/self-paid) for 10 days after which a PCR test would be conducted.

To facilitate stranded Pakistanis, travel from these countries will be allowed till Dec 5 without exemption but the above-mentioned health/testing protocols will remain applicable.

An official of the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) said Pakistan had introduced three categories to deal with coronavirus.

“Countries in A category are exempted from the mandatory Covid-19 test, travellers from areas in B category require a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that must be taken within 72 hours of the travel date while countries in C category are restricted and people can travel only under specific NCOC guidelines,” he said.

Meanwhile, the NCOC data showed that nine patients succumbed to the virus and 176 more got infected during the last 24 hours.

The infection rate was calculated at 0.59pc, with 966 patients hospitalised.

Studies on Omicron

Researchers in South Africa and around the world are conducting studies to better understand Omicron and will share the findings as they become available.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), in a statement, said: “It is not yet clear whether Omicron is more transmissible (e.g. more easily spread from person to person) compared to other variants, including Delta.”

However, the statement said, the number of positive cases had risen in areas of South Africa affected by the new strain. Epidemiologic studies were being conducted to understand whether the spike in cases was due to Omicron or other factors, it added.

Similarly it is not yet clear whether infection with Omicron causes more severe disease.

Preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalisation in South Africa, but this may be due to increase in the number of people getting infected, rather than a result of specific infection with Omicron.

Preliminary evidence suggests that there may be an increased risk of re-infection with Omicron (people who have previously had Covid-19 could become re-infected more easily with Omicron) compared to other variants, but information is limited.

At present, the WHO is coordinating with a large number of researchers around the world to better understand the new strain.

The WHO has encouraged countries to contribute to the collection and share hospitalised patient data through the WHO Covid-19 Clinical Data Platform to rapidly describe clinical characteristics and patient outcomes.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2021