More Contagious South African, Brazilian COVID variants Detected in Pakistan

Arhama Altaf

01st May, 2021. 11:20 am
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Amidst the third deadly COVID-19 wave in Pakistan, health officials have found two new virus variants in Sindh identified in Brazil and South Africa.

Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho in an official video message on Twitter informed that Sindh’s health minister unveiled that the Agha Khan University Hospital (AKUH) collected 13 samples to conduct genomic research verifying the variants of the virus.

She added, “Out of these samples, 10 were of the UK variant, two of the South African variant while the other was found to be of the Brazilian variant.”

Minister for Health & Population Welfare, Dr. @AzraPechuho strongly recommends avoiding crowds & even small social gatherings, as well as travelling unnecessarily. If we dont enforce & follow these protocols we will face a humanitarian crises not unlike that in India #SindhHealth pic.twitter.com/I4ZC2ylqDB
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— Health and Population Welfare Department, Sindh (@SindhHealthDpt) April 30, 2021

“You can see these strains and the kind of pressure that can be put on our health facilities,” Pechuho said.

“If you contract the Brazilian or South African variants, you can become extremely ill,” she added.

She warned that the UK variant was more lethal and spread more rapidly, with around 60% infectivity rate and nearly 68% fatality rate.

The health minister added that the fatality rate for the South African and Brazilian strands was also high.

“This is an emergency as these variants are not vaccine responsive either,” Dr Pechuho claimed.

She went on to add, “Therefore it is important for everyone to take all necessary precautions & take this seriously.”

Note that the ongoing deadly COVID-19 pandemic has claimed 146 more lives in Pakistan over the last 24 hours after which the death toll stands at 17,957.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data, 4,696 new germs were found after 48,740 samples were tested. The positivity rate of new cases was reported at 9.63%, the NCOC said.

However, the number of patients currently suffering from the deadly disease has soared to 5,490.

So far, Punjab has reported 303,182, Sindh 283,560, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 118,413, Islamabad 754,98, Balochistan 22,369, Azad Jammu and Kashmir 17,187 and Gilgit Baltistan 5,310.

More Contagious South African, Brazilian COVID variants Detected in Pakistan

Arhama Altaf

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