Research reveals rise of UK, South African variants of COVID-19 in Pakistan

KARACHI: Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research (PCMD), University of Karachi, Thursday, reported that the third wave of COVID-19 was becoming more serious due to the sharp increase of highly contagious UK and South African variants in Pakistan.

Steep rise in the UK and South African variants in Pakistan might push the situation out of control if immediate measures were not taken to address the looming disaster, said Prof. Dr. M. Iqbal Choudhary, Director of the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, and Coordinator General COMSTECH while reviewing the COVID-related research projects at the National Center for Virology (NCV) and Jamil-ur-Rehman Center for Genome Research of the Dr. Panjwani Center.

A recent study at the National Center for Virology revealed that around 50 percent of the positive cases were UK variants while 25 percent were South African variants, he said. In the backdrop of large-scale violation of corona SOPs in Pakistan, these variants have the potential to sweep a major chunk of the population within a short period, he maintained.

Prof. Choudhary emphasized the need to step up genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 to timely identify and contain rapidly emerging new strains of the virus.

It is pertinent to mention here that global concerns toward South African variants were on the rise due to its tendency to re-infect vaccinated individuals.

Furthermore, citing the recent reports, he highlighted that the novel coronavirus variant that was causing the current wave of Covid-19 in neighboring India was not just highly infectious but also surreptitious. Patients demonstrating typical severe COVID-19 symptoms are testing negative even using the latest RT-PCR-based assays, he added.

Extrapolating the situation in India, he warned that the same could have been happening in other countries where testing and genomic surveillance were limited. These countries were likely to have new unnoticed strains, which can escape current vaccine regimes, and cause major outbreaks, he observed.