Zulfi Bukhari admonishes British news outlets demonising Pakistan for COVID-19 spread

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Zulfi Bukhari on Tuesday said that the deadly coronavirus had surfaced in Pakistan after the pandemic hit Britain in start of February, ARY News reported.

“There was not even a single case of the virus in Pakistan, the pandemic hit the UK in start of February, while it reached Pakistan by end of the same month,” said Bukhari while rejecting British media reports about origins of the virus outbreak in United Kingdom.

In a press release, SAPM Zulfi Bukhari addressing the UK-based publications The Telegraph, The Sun and Daily Mail said that the news outlets had published baseless and misleading news stories in which they wrongly attributed the spread of coronavirus to Pakistani nationals who travelled from the country to England.

“How can it export the virus to the UK when there was not even a single case reported in Pakistan [at that time],” he questioned.

The SAPM said the publications had done cheap and non-professional reporting by linking the spread of coronavirus in the UK with Pakistan.

Citing the research study of Oxford University, Bukhari said that UK had imported most of the coronavirus cases from other countries including France, Italy and Spain.

The global pandemic in the UK had at least 1,300 origins when it came to import of the virus, quoted the government functionary.

He also added that UK had reported some 80 percent of the it’s coronavirus cases between February 28 and March 29 while Pakistan had closed its airspace in mid-March.