Five travelers from Saudi Arabia test positive for COVID-19 at Karachi airport

KARACHI: As many as five more travelers coming from Saudi Arabia have tested positive for COVID-19 at Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, on Thursday, ARY NEWS reported.

According to sources, the tests came positive after authorities conducted rapid antigen tests of the passengers coming from Saudi Arabia.

“They have been shifted to a quarantine centre in Korangi from Karachi airport,” they said adding that a genome sequencing on samples collected from them would also be conducted in order to ascertain if they are being infected by an Omicron variant or not.

The nationwide case tally of the Omicron variant of coronavirus has reached 75, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirmed on Tuesday.

According to the NIH data, Karachi has reported 33 omicron cases, 17 cases were reported in Islamabad, 13 in Lahore and 12 cases of Omicron were detected in people coming from abroad.

The NIH said that authorities are conducting contact tracing to prevent the further spread of omicron variant in the country.

Pakistan’s COVID-19 tally

The COVID-19 has claimed three more lives in Pakistan during the last 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 28,921.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 482 more people were infected with the coronavirus.

A total of 50,661 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, out of which 482 turned out to be positive, showing an infection rate of 0.95% as compared to yesterday’s 0.87 percent.

At present, 639 critical patients have been admitted to hospitals across the country, the NCOC said.

Read More: Acute phase of pandemic could end in 2022: WHO

Sindh remains on the top with 481,381 cases followed by Punjab with 444,862 cases of the COVID-19. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reported 181,334 cases, while Islamabad has registered 108,565 cases since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country.