Omicron in Pakistan: Asad Umar urges citizens to get vaccinated

Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar has urged everyone to get vaccinated following the first case of the Omicron variant being confirmed in Pakistan.

In a tweet on Saturday, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) head said that with arrival of the Omicron variant the need for vaccination is even more urgent.

"So far 8 crore 75 lakh Pakistani's have taken at least one dose and 6 crore people are fully vaccinated," he tweeted.

So far, the country has administered over 138,365,300 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to its citizens. "26% of total population and 39% of eligible population stand vaccinated!" the NCOC tweeted on Friday.

Suspected sample from Karachi is indeed Omicron variant, confirms NIH

Meanwhile, the country conducted 47,903 tests during the last 24 hours, out of which 357 came out positive. Out of these, 25 cases were detected in Islamabad, three in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 45 in Punjab and 51 in KPK.

Meanwhile, Balochistan logged eight cases while GB detected no new case of Covid-19.

The country also reported seven new deaths while there are 666 critical cases. Moreover, there are 9,582 active coronavirus cases.

Pakistan also reported 239 recoveries from the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking the total recoveries 1,252,396.

On Monday, the National Institute of Health (NIH) confirmed Pakistan's first Omicron case, a week after Sindh had announced a suspected case of the new variant in a female patient.

"The NIH has been able to confirm (via whole genome sequencing) that a recently suspected sample from Karachi is indeed the ‘Omicron variant’ of SARS-CoV2," NIH said in a tweet.

"This is the first confirmed case but continued surveillance of suspected samples is in place to identify the trends."

Pakistan reports first 'suspected' Omicron case

In another tweet, NIH stressed the importance of getting vaccinated to protect from the serious effects of existing and new variants. The institute urged the citizens to get vaccinated according to guidelines issued by the National Command and Operation Centre.