Pakistan health officials have been put on alert as the country reported its first confirmed cases of a new coronavirus strain that was first detected in the United Kingdom earlier.
The health authorities took 12 COVID-19 samples of the UK returnees for genotyping out of which six were positive and three showed the new variant of the COVID-19 virus in the first, according to a Sindh Health Department statement
“The Genotyping showed 95 percent match of the new variant from the UK. These samples will go through another phase of genotyping,” Sindh Health Department spokesperson Meeran Yousuf said. The contact tracing of those patients is in process and their contacts are being isolated also.
The provincial health department has informed Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on National Health Services Dr Faisal Sultan of the development.