ISLAMABAD: To protect Pakistan from the rapidly spreading new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) recently banned inbound travel from nine more countries.
These countries included Netherland, Slovenia, Vietnam, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Ireland, Croatia and Zimbabwe.
Earlier, NCOC inflicted a complete ban on South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini, and Hong Kong.
According to NCOC, the decision was taken after reviewing the pandemic situation in the country.
NCOC put these countries in category C amid the emergence of the Omicron strain in South Africa. Travel from these territories would be allowed only “on extreme emergency”, and the travellers would be required to follow specific health and testing protocols, including showing a vaccination certificate, negative PCR report, and undergoing Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) on arrival.
Moreover, NCOC has also imposed a restriction of 100 per cent RAT on arrival for transit flights arriving via Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar to guard against the entry of Omicron variant through indirect flights.
A few days before, five Pakistani passengers tested positive for COVID-19 at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport after arriving from Saudi Arabia. Authorities moved them to a quarantine facility and sent their samples to the laboratory to determine the COVID-19 variant as Saudi Arabia recently detected its first case of the Omicron variant.
