KARACHI: Health experts have associated the number of declining coronavirus cases in the country to the presence of a kind of “non-specific immunity” that is unique to the Pakistanis due to their exposure to various vaccines.
Dr Rana Muhammad Safdar, a leading epidemiologist and coordinator of the National Emergency Operation Centre (EOC), Islamabad told The News that the percentage of coronavirus positive cases, the number of hospitalised patients and deaths had been declining in Pakistan since the start of July 2020.
“As far as the reason behind this decrease in cases is concerned, it could mainly be due to the presence of a non-specific immunity that is unique to Pakistanis due to multiple exposures of various vaccines, highly humid weather and low transmission season of respiratory illnesses in the peak summer,” Dr Safdar said.
Other experts and officials also agree that the number of cases in the country has been declining since the start of July; however, nobody could ascertain the reason behind the slowing down of the pandemic.
Experts added that this decline was also being seen in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Iran, except India where COVID-19 cases and the deaths were increasing.
According to Dr Safdar, the presence of “a non-specific, unique” immunity could be one of the reasons why the number of positive cases was declining in the country.
He added that in addition to producing a specific immunity, all vaccines produced an innate, non-specific immunity in the human beings that prevented them from other pathogens also.
“Our population has been exposed to so many vaccines in their lifetimes, including BCG (Bacillus Calmette–Guérin) vaccine, which is primarily used against tuberculosis and OPV, that they must have strong immune responses against several other pathogens, including the novel coronavirus,” Dr Safdar said.
“This non-specific immunity is playing an important role in slowing down the spread of this virus and reduced mortality, as compared to other countries of the world, in Pakistan.”
Dr Safdar added that another factor that could be the highly humid weather in the current monsoon season in Pakistan. “Due to humidity, the air becomes heavy and droplets containing the virus don’t go far when a carrier speaks coughs or sneezes,” he said.
“And lastly, it is low transmission season for respiratory viruses and its transmission in the sunlight is very slow. It is still spreading but mostly in shaded places,” Dr Safdar said.
Speaking about the reduced testing, Dr Safdar said that despite the number of coronavirus tests decreasing in the last two weeks, the percentage of positive cases had also decreased drastically, which showed that a fewer number of people were contracting the disease in Pakistan.
“At the peak of COVID-19 cases, 22-23% of people were testing positive in June 2020, but now the percentage of positive cases has dropped to 10% or less. The decline in cases is also evident from the reduced hospitalisation and a lesser number of people requiring ventilators’ support,” he added.
When asked why there was a major shift in the number of tests declining in the country, the doctor said there were two major reasons.
“First because exit test recovered patients are no more mandatory while no more mandatory testing of all international arrivals is being implemented,” he said.
He added, “The third contributory factor is the significant slowing down of the epidemic everywhere except Karachi, which is evident from decreased positivity along with case numbers, fewer suspects reporting for testing by themselves, a lesser load on hospitals, declining numbers of patients on oxygen and on ventilators, stable death counts, lesser daily healthcare infections and stabilisation of epidemic in Southeast Asia as a whole except India.”
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