Data from Pakistan's Sindh: 50% COVID cases are of Omicron
Jan 04, 2022
Sindh [Pakistan], January 4 : Sindh Government on Sunday said that the Omicron cases have reached up to 50% in the province especially in Karachi. The data collected by the provincial authorities clearly suggests that Pakistan is in the grip of the Omicron variant.
A total of 351 samples of Covid-19 positive cases were collected and analysed and the data is worrisome as 175 of these samples were of Omicron variant, the provincial health authorities confirmed.
Chief Minister of Sindh, Syed Murad Ali Shah, discussed the deteriorating health situation in Sindh with the health authorities. They apprised the Chief Minister of the rise in the cases of new variant and confirmed that the situation is challenging and worsening day by the day, reported Geo News.
Tracking down the chain of the spread, it was confirmed that a few cases out of 175 omicron samples had travel history. The travel history was predominantly from the UK, Dubai, the USA, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Nairobi and Angola.
The meeting was attended by Minister of Health, Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, Adviser Law Murtaza Wahab, and Parliamentary Secretary on Health Qasim Soomro, acting Chief Secretary Qazi Shahid Pervez, Principal Secretary to CM Sajid Jamal Abro, Secretary, Health, Zulfiqar Ali Shah, Dr Bari of Indus Hospital and others.
Another key concern is the alarming rise in the cases in the past 30 days. On December 3, last year, a total of 261 new cases were detected which increased significantly and reached a total of 403 till January 2, 2022.
The Chief Minister has urged the health officials to ramp up vaccinations and testing. He urged the people to adopt Covid-appropriate behaviour, failing which strict rules will be clamped.
The CM was informed that a total of 29,579,471 vaccine doses have been administered in Sindh province. Sindh government's spokesman, Barrister Murtaza Wahab, also spoke along the same lines.
