Health authorities in Islamabad have responded to the situation by starting the process of contact tracing for the man, as well as sending his sample for gene sequencing. Moreover, officials have stated that teams are ready to respond to any larger outbreak of the new variant in the federal capital.
Islamabad’s first Omicron patient has no history of travel abroad, but according to the Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Hamza Shafqaat, he has a travel history from Karachi. Pakistan’s first suspected case of the Omicron variant was detected in Karachi on the 8th of December. The virus was detected in a 57-year-old unvaccinated woman. Since then, the new strain of the Coronavirus has been detected in other patients in Karachi, including the second case in the country, which was of a man who arrived on a flight from the UK. There are also reports of a number of suspected Omicron cases in Balochistan.