Pakistan has reported its first confirmed cases of a new coronavirus strain detected in the United Kingdom earlier this year.

According to the Sindh health department, 12 samples of UK returnees were taken for genotyping out of which six were positive and three showed the new variant of the Covid virus in the first phase.

"The genotyping showed 95 per cent match of the new variant from the UK. These samples will go through another phase of genotyping," said Meeran Yousuf, spokesperson for the Sindh health department.

"Meanwhile, the contact tracing of these patients is in process and their contacts are also being isolated," she said.

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