No evidence new coronavirus strain from UK has reached Pakistan — health chief

ISLAMABAD: Dr. Faisal Sultan, the de facto health chief of Pakistan, said on Thursday there was no evidence that a new strain of the coronavirus that had emerged in the United Kingdom had reached Pakistan.
Countries across the globe, including Pakistan, shut their borders to Britain on Monday due to fears about a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, causing travel chaos and raising the prospect of food shortages days before Britain is set to leave the European Union.
“We don’t have any scientific evidence available to us if the new strain from the United Kingdom has reached Pakistan,” Sultan told an online seminar organized by the Pakistan Society for Awareness and Community Empowerment (PACE). “But we are trying to find out if any new strain of coronavirus from UK or any other place has managed to reach here.”
“Even British authorities don’t have any strong evidence if the virus has become more infectious,” he added.
The World Health Organization also cautioned against major alarm over the new variant of the virus, saying this was a normal part of a pandemic’s evolution.
Citing data from Britain, WHO officials said they had no evidence that the variant made people sicker or was more deadly than existing strains of COVID-19, although it did seem to spread more easily.
Regarding vaccine availability in Pakistan, Sultan said the first deployment of the vaccine would start in the first quarter of the next year, saying efforts were underway to start vaccinating half a million frontline workers by the end of February to March 2021. 
“We have three to four options available regarding vaccines but we are trying to acquire more than one vaccine for our people,” the health chief said. For the general population of Pakistan, between the ages of 18-60 years, a vaccine would likely be available in the second or third quarter of 2021, Sultan said. 
“We are looking at European, Chinese and even Russian vaccine options but it would be a mix and match for us and we would acquire it from more than one source for our people,” the health chief said. 
On Thursday, Pakistan reported 111 new deaths due to the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the highest tally since the last week of June. 
According to the ministry of health’s COVID-19 portal, Pakistan recorded 2,256 new infections in the last 24 hours, raising the total number of cases to 465,070, with 9,668 deaths.