The Sindh Health Department has confirmed two positive cases of the COVID-19 ’s new variant JN.1 were detected in passengers at Jinnah International Airport, Karachi.

The spokesperson said the authorities at the airport collected six samples and two of them detected positive for COVID-19.

The passengers landed in Karachi after traveling in from Abu Dhabi and Bangkok.

The 26-year-old and 53-year-old passengers belong to Kech of Balochistan and Hyderabad of Sindh, respectively. However, the government did not establish any quarantine centers yet.

Both passengers have been advised to quarantine at home.

On January 3, the National Command and Operation Centre had decided to bring back Covid testing at points of entry throughout the country.

NCOC said it was ‘vigilantly’ observing the surge in COVID-19 cases across the world and decided to take measures to prevent its spread in Pakistan.

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On the other hand, earlier a week, the National Institute of Health (NIH) had rejected the possibility of JN.1 spreading in the country.

The NIH said that the sub-variants of influenza-A H2 and H3 were spreading across the country affecting people who have reported respiratory problems.

It added that it was not COVID-19 making people sick these days in Pakistan because the COVID-19 positivity rate remained below 1% last week.