Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Amid the alarming revelation that the latest coronavirus variant has reached Karachi, Dr Atta-ur-Rehman stressed that vaccine would have to be developed at local level to fight the pandemic on Thursday. Dr Rehman, who is the chairperson of the prime minister’s national task force on science and technology, noted that the new variant could affect children more – unlike the previous trend.
Over 200 companies were currently involved in the process of developing a vaccine that could control the variant, he added. Separately, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry in a tweet said importing the coronavirus vaccine was a complicated issue
Noting that vaccine being safe is important than the price, he said there would be no compromise on quality. The first meeting of the federal cabinet committee was held yesterday with a target of quality vaccine’s availability at a reasonable rate, Fawad said. Discussing the new coronavirus strain B.1.1.7, The Guardian in a report said a growing number of countries had enacted travel bans against the UK over the past week.
Experts say that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should still provide immunity against this coronavirus strain. “A mutation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Viruses are expected to mutate,” said Brian Labus, an epidemiologist, infectious disease expert, and public health professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
In fact, Steve Russell, PhD, MPH, the CEO and co-founder of Imanis Life Sciences, said that SARS-CoV-2 — the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 — has been acquiring a rate of 1 to 2 mutations a month ever since it first appeared in Wuhan, China. Because of mutations, Labus says that the coronavirus strain from China isn’t the same circulating in the United States and other parts of the world. “Everything that has genetic material will undergo mutation, and that’s really the driving force behind evolution. But viruses mutate much more frequently, especially RNA viruses, like coronaviruses,” Angela Rasmussen, PhD, a virologist at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, said.
Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said complete safety of coronavirus vaccine is more important than its price. No compromise will be made on quality, he assured. The federal minister took to Twitter on Thursday and told that the first cabinet committee meeting for procurement of COVID-19 vaccine was held on Wednesday.
Fawad Chaudhry said, “The import of the vaccine is a complex and important matter. The committee’s target is to procure the vaccine as soon as possible at cheap price. On the other hand, Pakistan has reported 111 deaths in the last 24 hours by novel coronavirus as the number of positive cases has surged to 465,070. The nationwide tally of fatalities has jumped to 9,668.
According to the latest figures by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), 2,256 persons tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. Sindh remains the worst-hit province by the pandemic in terms of cases followed by Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad. Punjab has overtaken Sindh in most number of casualties.
Till now 207,407 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Sindh, 133,874 in Punjab 56,160 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 36,721 in Islamabad, 18,005 in Balochistan, 8,065 in Azad Kashmir and 4,838 in Gilgit-Baltistan. Furthermore 3,783 individuals have lost their lives to the epidemic in Punjab 3,419 in Sindh, 1,577 in KP, 398 in Islamabad, 211 in Azad Kashmir, 181 in Balochistan, and 99 in GB.
