Covid-19: Pakistan to intensify vaccination drive to stop Omicron variant, says minister

Asad Umar, Pakistan's minister for planning, development and special initiatives, on Monday said that due to the impending threat of the new variant of Covid-19, the government had decided to re-intensify the vaccination campaign across the country by utilising extra resources.

“The vaccination process was already going on but now we are going to escalate the process and within two or three days, a reinforced vaccination campaign would start in all the provinces to minimise threat of the new variant (Omicron),” he said while addressing a press briefing along with Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan after chairing a meeting at National Command and Operation Centre.

He said the new variant was a very dangerous virus and it had potential to spread across the world.

“What we can do is to at least delay the arrival of virus in Pakistan by taking prompt actions,” he added.

He said the testing process had also been slowed in the country due to the low rate of cases, but now “we are going to start testing in the high risk areas to check the virus”.

The minister said the government had also decided to put specific restrictions on international flights and travellers.

He said as per news pouring in about the the new variant, it was very dangerous but the vaccination could be proved as effective against the virus.

Umar said that to date, some 50 million people in the country had been completely inoculated while 30 million had received first dose of the vaccine.

Dr Faisal Sultan said the new variant was dangerous in the sense that it had the ability to spread more rapidly than the earlier variants.