Karachi (Web Desk): Pakistan on Monday confirmed first case of the new coronavirus variant Omicron.
According to details, the Agha Khan University Hospital (AKUH) stated that Omicron variant has been detected in a patient through gene-sequencing.
In a tweet, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) also confirmed that the Omicron variant has been detected. "The National Institute of Health, Islamabad has been able to confirm that a recently suspected sample from Karachi is indeed the ‘Omicron variant’ of Sars-CoV2," it said.
"This is the first confirmed case but continued surveillance of identified samples is in place to identify trends," the NCOC added.
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The NCOC urged people to vaccinate for protection against the serious effects of existing and new variants.
On December 8, Pakistan reported its first ‘suspected’ case of the new coronavirus variant Omicron in Karachi.
As per the Sindh health department, a private hospital in Karachi reported the first case of the variant in a 65-year-old female patient. The infected woman was unvaccinated and has been discharged from the hospital.
On Dec 9, the NIH issued a clarification stating that the sample was yet to be confirmed as Omicron through whole-genome sequencing, adding it would be obtained from the Sindh government.
It later said that results of samples of three suspected cases of Omicron variant of COVID-19 would be received on Monday (today).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Omicron had spread to 63 countries as of December 9. Faster transmission was noted in South Africa, where Delta is less prevalent, and in Britain, where Delta is the dominant strain.
On the other hand, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 1,289,293 on Monday after 244 new cases surfaced in the country during the last 24 hours.
As per the NCOC data, 39,387 tests were conducted in last 24 hours while positivity ratio remained 0.61%.
The government's COVID-19 portal revealed the death toll related to coronavirus has reached to 28,836 with 6 fatalities reported during the last 24 hours.
Over the last twenty four hours, total number of recovered COVID-19 patients across the country reached 1,251,409 after another 308 virus recoveries were reported.
