Delta variant of Covid-19: Pakistanis returning from Afghanistan being quarantined

PESHAWAR: Hundreds of Pakistanis returning from Afghanistan are being quarantined due to fears they may be carrying a delta variant of coronavirus.

The government has opened the Torkham border with Afghanistan for 24 hours to enable Pakistanis to return to their homeland.

They had gone to Afghanistan to fly from Kabul airport to Saudi Arabia as the Saudi Airline had cancelled its flight operations from Pakistan due to coronavirus.

They had to suffer seeking Afghan visas and waiting in Kabul for several weeks to get the air tickets. All of them had valid visas to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Their suffering didn’t end as the Saudi Airlines cancelled their flight operations from Afghanistan.

They had no other option but to return to Pakistan. The government didn’t make arrangements for their transportation. According to people arriving in Pakistan, they had spent their own money while returning from Kabul to Torkham.

Also, the government, particularly the district administration of Khyber tribal district, didn’t make arrangements for their stay and food in Torkham when they were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital in Landikotal.

Also, senior government officials said they didn’t have a proper record of the people who have returned and asked this correspondent to approach the deputy commissioner Khyber tribal district.

Deputy Commissioner Mansoor Khan said he didn’t have the record of the Pakistan, who had returned from Afghanistan.

Since there were no arrangements for these people at the Landikotal hospital, the government then sent them to their respective districts.

As per recommendations of the National Control and Operation Centre (NCOC), these people would be quarantined in their respective districts and allowed to go home after testing negative.

In Mardan where 47 people had been quarantined, deputy commissioner Habibullah Arif told The News that four of them tested positive for the coronavirus.

According to the deputy commissioner, they would repeat the PCR test of all of them and if tested positive, they would be quarantined for 16 days.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa secretary health Syed Imtiaz Hussain told The News that five samples were sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad in which three were tested positive for the UK variant, and one with South Africa and Delta variant of India.