Coronavirus: 50% of third wave cases due to UK variant, 25% because of South African variant

• Expert says coronavirus is becoming more serious due to increase of highly contagious UK, South African variants.
• Prof Choudhary warns that situation may slip out of control if immediate measures are not taken to address looming disaster.
• Expert warns that these variants have the potential to sweep a major chunk of the population within a short period.

Professor Dr Iqbal Choudhary shared on Thursday that a study conducted by the National Institute of Virology (NIV) showed that close to 50% of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan’s were due to the UK variant, while 25% were because of the South African variant, reported The News on Friday.

The details about the impact of the South African and UK variant were reported by Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine & Drug Research (PCMD) at the University of Karachi’s International Centre for Chemical & Biological Sciences (ICCBS) which was reviewing the COVID-related research projects undertaken by the National Institute of Virology (NIV) and the Jamil-ur-Rahman Centre for Genome Research of the PCMD.

PCMD said that the third wave of coronavirus is becoming more serious due to the sharp increase of the highly contagious UK and South African variants in Pakistan.

Read more: NIH planning to develop single dose coronavirus vaccine in Pakistan

Prof Choudhary, who is the director of ICCBS, warned that the situation may slip out of control if immediate measures are not taken to address the looming disaster.

“In the backdrop of massive violations of coronavirus-related standard operating procedures across the country, these variants have the potential to sweep a major chunk of the population within a short period,” said Dr Choudhary.

Pakistan reports 110 more fatalities as coronavirus grips country

The warning by the professor came as Pakistan reported 110 more deaths on Friday. The new deaths took the total nationwide death tally to 15,872.

As per the official data by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 64,481 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours from which 5,364 tests returned positive.

The positivity rate of coronavirus stands at 8.31% as of today (Friday).

Read more: Close to 10% of coronavirus patients in Islamabad, Rawalpindi are children, says report

Amid a third wave of the pandemic, the country has reported 739,818 COVID-19 cases so far since the beginning of the pandemic last year.

The number of active cases stands at 77,294 with the nationwide recoveries rising to 646,652.

The coronavirus situation has deteriorated further in Pakistan leading to stringent restrictions from the NCOC to curb the spread of the virus.