ISLAMABAD (HRNW) The caretaker government has decided to enhance testing of COVID-19 following an advisory issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) regarding the new variant – “JN.1 Omicron”, media reported on Wednesday.
The National Command and Operations Center (NCOC) has issued advisory to provincial health departments, pointing out the WHO alert about increase in respiratory infection.
In the advisory, the NCOC pointed out that neighbouring countries were reporting cases of the newly-spread JN-1 variant of COVID-19.
“It has also been observed with serious concerns that number of cases of Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) are rising in the country for the past few weeks,” it added.
Keeping in the above-mentioned situation, the NCOC urged all provinces/regions to enhance COVID-19 testing to monitor the real time situation in the country.
On Dec 19, the WHO declared JN.1 “a variant of interest” due to its “rapidly increasing spread”.