DM Monitoring
ISLAMABAD: After reporting around 300 infections for the last four weeks, the nation Thursday registered a jump in new cases of coronavirus as it announced 482 new patients during the last 24 hours, with about 80 percent of those believed to be highly infectious Omicron variant.
Pakistan last reported more than 400 infections on December 3, data from the Ministry of National Health Services showed. The update from the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) coincided with a World Health Organisation (WHO) warning that a Covid-19 “tsunami” threatened to overwhelm healthcare systems. “I am highly concerned that Omicron, being more transmissible, circulating at the same time as Delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “This is and will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers, and health systems on the brink of collapse.” First detected in November, the Omicron variant has now been reported in 57 countries and continues to spread rapidly in South Africa, the WHO said.
With the emergence of new cases, the tally of the infected people climbed to 1,294,861 across the country, said the NCOC, the department leading the campaign against the pandemic.
Sindh has been the worst hit, with a total of 481,381 cases, followed by Punjab where the virus was detected in 444,862 people. A total of 28,921 people died of the disease, including three patients who lost their lives to the pandemic over the last 24 hours, the NCOC said. The country currently has 10,009 active cases, while 1,255,931 others have recovered.
Seperately, the NCOC announced that all vaccination centres across the nation will remain closed on January 1 and 2 (Saturday and Sunday) as “vaccination staff remained extensively engaged in achieving national targets for the year 2021”.
“The vaccination campaign will resume from Jan 3,” the body said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the government announced stepping up its vaccination efforts and is expanding the criteria for vaccine booster shots, amid fears of the Omicron variant. In November, Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, who also heads the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), warned the Omicron variant will “inevitably” find its way to Pakistan, adding the nation had “only a few weeks” to contain the latest threat.
“The emergence of new variant makes it even more urgent to vaccinate all eligible citizens 12 years and older,” he said. “It is my appeal to people, particularly those who’ve gotten one dose to get the second dose because this is one effective thing we have to protect ourselves from the danger of this variant,” the minister added.
The alert followed a WHO communiqué warning its 194 member states the variant is likely to spread internationally, posing a “very high” global risk where Covid-19 surges could have “severe consequences” in some areas.
The UN agency urged them to accelerate vaccination of high-priority groups and to “ensure mitigation plans are in place” to maintain essential health services.
