Special Assistant to the Prime Minister, Dr. Faisal Sultan, composed a letter to the British Health Secretary in regards to keeping Pakistan on the ‘red list’ by comparing the epidemic statistics of Pakistan, and other countries to point the “obvious discrepancies”.
The letter was shared on Twitter by Shireen Mazari, the Federal Human Rights Minister, which suggested that the UK government may have “interventions focused directly on the traveler, rather than on other metrics” to reduce the risk of spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Dr. Faisal further recommended that the UK may use a three-factor process rather than their traffic light system to inhibit the growth of the virus. These consisted of “valid proof of having received a WHO (World Health Organisation) approved Covid-19 vaccine, a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test (72 hours prior to departure), and a rapid antigen test at the airport, pre-departure”.
Due to the rise in the cases of delta variants, Pakistan was red-listed in early April, while India was placed on the list on the 19th of the same month. However, in a recent update, many countries including India, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) were shifted to the amber list while Pakistan retained its position on the ‘red list’.
This decision was highly criticized, even called ‘political’ rather than fact-based, considering that India was facing a higher rate of spread of the virus than Pakistan. Britain, however, refuted in a statement by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, justifying their decision to a “combination of deteriorating epidemiological situation, combined with low testing rates and limited genomic surveillance” in Pakistan. In addition, the current trajectory of the cases that implied the fourth wave in Pakistan was also attributed to this situation.
In his letter, Dr. Sultan compared Pakistan’s statistics with that of India, Iraq, and Iran, emphasizing the lowest daily cases per million, daily deaths per million, and the total deaths per million, whereas the daily vaccinations topped this comparative analysis.
The Prime minister’s aide accepted the lack of genome sequencing in Pakistan, but also added that according to the reports, Delta variant seemed to be a major strain affecting the country and that using this metric “appears to introduce an unnecessarily larger metric, whereas disease security can be reliably achieved via somewhat more targeted measures”.
Lastly, he pointed out that Pakistan’s effort to curb the virus was recognized by the United Nations General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, by Forbes magazine, and The Economist which ranked Pakistan at 3rd position in handling the ongoing pandemic.
