‘No threat so far’: New Covid variant not detected in Pakistan, says NCOC

ISLAMABAD: Denying detection of Omicron sub-variant BF.7 in Pakistan, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) Saturday said at present there was no threat of any new variant of Covid-19 and the situation was being monitored closely by the authorities.

“A unverified news is circulating in the media regarding the threat of a new COVID-19 variant. The National Command and Operations Center affirms that at present there is no such threat. The situation is being closely monitored,” the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, said in a statement on microblogging website twitter.

Following China, India reported detection of several cases of BF.7, a sub-variant of Omicron variant of Covid-19 which is driving the huge Covid surge in China. The BF.7 sub-variant has already been detected in several other countries, including Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark, the US and the UK. Believed to be highly transmissible variant with a shorter incubation period, the BF.7 is a sub-lineage of the Omicron variant BA, experts at the NIH said adding that it also has a higher capacity to cause re-infection and can even infect vaccinated individuals.

“According to latest studies, the BF.7 variant has several times higher neutralisation resistance than the original Wuhan virus. This means the antibodies from the vaccination are not effective enough against the virus,” an expert at the NIH told The News.