ISLAMABAD: The health authorities have recently announced the presence of another variant of the deadly coronavirus in Pakistan.
As the country has started to go back to normal after the decline in new COVID-19 infections and relaxing curbs, Dr Javed Akram, Member Scientific Task Force on Covid-19 and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Health Sciences, while talking to a local newspaper, said, a new virulent variant of COVID-19 called ‘Epsilon’ had been detected. As the variant first originated in California, thus called the Californian strain or B.1.429. It later reached the United Kingdom and other European countries, he said.
He further told they had been receiving cases in Pakistan, and around 40 patients having the strain had been confirmed in Pakistan through gene sequencing. He added that gene sequencing had not been done on every patient, so it wasn’t an exact figure.
Dr Akram said five variants and seven mutations of Epsilon had been reported so far had made it more infectious. Still, the positive side was that all vaccines were effective against Epsilon. Therefore people should immediately get immunised and adhere to the standard operating procedures, he emphasised.
