The everyday number of Covid-19 infections were steady despite detection of an Omicron variant as Pakistan diagnosed 19 more coronavirus cases with no fatality during the last 24 hours, showed the statistics released by the National Institute of Health (NIH) on Wednesday morning.

According to the NIH data, the death toll in the country remained the same at 30,640 whereas the number of total infections now rose to 1,576,312 after adding the fresh 19 cases. During the last 24 hours, 3,797 tests were conducted throughout Pakistan whereas the positivity ratio stood at 0.50 percent. The number of patients in critical care stood at 11.

First case of Omicron sub-variant BF.7 emerges A new case of coronavirus BF.7 variant was reported in Karachi. The current surge in Covid-19 infections in China is believed to be driven by the BF.7 sub-variant of Omicron. But this isn’t the first time that BF.7 has made news — in October, it started to replace the variants that were then dominant in the United States and several European countries.

Sources said the variant was detected in Karachi after sequencing of the virus. This is the first case of BF.7 variant in Pakistan. The symptoms seen in individuals infected with this variant are fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose and fatigue. Generally, these symptoms are that of mild 'flu'. However, occasionally some people do get severe symptoms like breathlessness, coughing, fatigue and low oxygen level. The BF.7 accounted for more than 5% of US cases and 7.26% of UK cases in October.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-INP