Covid vaccine 'very effective' in protection against virus variants: Dr Faisal

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr Faisal Sultan has said that Covid-19 vaccine is very effective to protect citizens from medical complications of many virus variants.

“Keeping in view the detection of new Covid-19 variants in Pakistan and raising questions on the effectiveness of vaccine process, I advise the people to must go for vaccination against the virus to avoid facing more complications and hospitalisation,” Dr Faisal said in a statement on Saturday.

He said that emergence of new variants and strains from virus is a natural phenomenon, adding that a few days back a new variant was detected in the UK while recently new strains were detected from South Africa and Brazil.

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He made it clear that there were many variants of Covid-19 in the world presently. He informed that on conducting a study on B.1.1.7, it was observed that it spread faster.

He added that some virus variants had a tendency of having more chances of re-occurrence of infection.

It is pertinent to mention here that the National Institute of Health (NIH) has detected one sample of the SARS-COV-2; B.1.351 (South African) and one sample of SARS-COV-2; P1 (Brazil) variants through genome sequencing.

According to the spokesman of the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, authorities are actively engaged in contact tracing of these positive cases. He added the Ministry of National Health Services and National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) were regularly monitoring Covid-19 variants of concern in the country.

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“Regardless of which variants have been detected, the SOPs recommended globally continue to be our first line of defence against the coronavirus. Please ensure that you wear a mask, practice social distancing, and do not leave your home unnecessarily,” he said.

"In addition, everyone over the age of 40 eligible for vaccination should register and get vaccinated as per the government guidelines," he added.

He said that the government has taken appropriate measures and tightened restrictions to curb the Covid-19 disease as the virus is spreading fast in the country.