Five test positive for Omicron variant in KP

PESHAWAR: The new variant of coronavirus, Omicron has finally reached Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after five patients tested positive for the viral infection, Health Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra told The News.

Also, three patients died of coronavirus on Wednesday and three of them died in Peshawar. It was after a long time KP started losing people as a result of the viral infection. The four patients were admitted to Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and another at the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC). The two hospitals have own laboratories for conducting coronavirus investigations.

Health Minister Taimur Jhagra hoped there would be no major issue as they had made taken measures to cope with the situation in case of outbreak of the new variant.

Vice chancellor Khyber Medical University (KMU), Prof Dr Ziaul Haq told The News that they had received swabs of the patients from the KTH and the HMC for sequencing and five of them were diagnosed with omicron variant of coronavirus. All the five patients belong to Peshawar, including four of them from the same family, aged 10 to 50 years.

The patients had no travel history, seemed the virus had already arrived in the provincial capital. Three of them are male and two female.

Sajjad Khan, a spokeswoman for the KTH, told The News that they had sent 23 samples of corona patients to the KMU for sequencing on December 31, 2021, saying they didn’t receive any report from the university so far.

He said previously they would send the samples to the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad but since the KMU had also started similar investigations, therefore they now sent the swabs to the medical university in Peshawar. He said presently they had 16 coronavirus patients in KTH under the observation of their experts.

Health Minister Taimur Jhagra said he was in touch with health experts as how to deal with the emerging situation, saying there was no need for creating panic among the people, except that they should follow the standard operating procedures.

“The doubling time of the Omicron is 2-3 days compared to two weeks of delta. This may lead to a very rapid rise in no of cases. To minimise the severe infection, associated hospitalisation and the number of deaths we should vaccinate (preferably triple vaccination) ourselves and people around us at the earliest and following SOPs; wearing masks, ensuring hand hygiene, physical distance, avoiding unnecessary indoors activities, and well-ventilation,” Taimur Jhagra explained, advising people to follow the SOPs and save their lives and their

He urged people to get themselves vaccinated against the viral infection and that’s the only way to remain safe from it. Besides these five omicron cases, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wednesday reported 36 cases of coronavirus.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has lost 5,938 people from the coronavirus since outbreak of the pandemic and reported 1,81,574 positive cases. Currently, there are 599 positive cases of the infectious disease in the province.

The number of casualties from coronavirus is stated to be much higher than official figures as majority of people used to avoid taking their patients to hospitals or any other facility for covid investigations.

Also, the pace of vaccination is quite slow in KP, particularly in the rural areas, as people still have certain unfounded doubts about the vaccine.