At least two cases of a new variant of Covid-19 have been reported in Sindh, Pakistan, Dawn reported on Friday. The variant is yet to be determined, but officials suspect the cases to be of the JN.1 variant.
The two cases were confirmed by the provincial health department in passengers who had arrived at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport.
The development came hours after caretaker federal health minister, Dr Nadeem Jan, told the Senate that no case of the JN.1 variant has yet been recorded.
The JN.1 variant is also called a sub-variant of the Omicron lineage. It is more transmissible than other circulating variants, and the proportion of cases caused by this particular virus has been rising.
Sources told the newspaper that the two male passengers, between the ages of 50 and 60, arrived in Karachi from Bangkok and Jeddah on Thursday and Friday.
“Both passengers were having flu-like symptoms and were found positive for Covid-19 with the help of Rapid Antigen Test (RAT),” a health department official said and added that their samples have been sent for analysis to a Dow University of Health Sciences laboratory.
The results would be available in at least five days.
According to the official, the new variant was “highly contagious” and the patients should have been quarantined in a designated facility.
But the passengers were allowed to leave for their hometowns in Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab and Sanghar in Sindh after being advised to quarantine themselves at their residences, the official added.
Only two per cent of all passengers on a flight were being screened for the virus with the help of RAT, he said.
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Earlier this week, the National Command and Operation Centre decided to bring back Covid testing at points of entry throughout the country.
In a notification, the NCOC said it was ‘vigilantly’ observing the surge in Covid-19 cases across the world and has decided to take measures to prevent its spread in Pakistan.
It has mandated screening of 2% of all arrivals into the country.
On January 3, the National Institute of Health clarified that people in Pakistan were getting sick with a new type of influenza and rejected the possibility of a new coronavirus variant JN.1 spreading in the country.
