On Saturday, the Sindh Health Department issued a clarification regarding four deaths previously attributed solely to COVID-19, stating that it was inaccurate to link the fatalities exclusively to the coronavirus.
In a statement, the provincial health department’s spokesperson explained that all four patients were over 60 years of age and were also suffering from other underlying medical conditions.
The spokesperson added that these patients were receiving treatment at a private hospital and were experiencing multiple health complications.
Furthermore, the spokesperson emphasized that COVID-19 is now widely regarded as a common virus globally, and attributing it as the sole cause of death could lead to unnecessary fear and panic among citizens.
This clarification followed reports from officials and infectious disease experts to The News, indicating that at least four individuals—primarily elderly patients with compromised immune systems and pre-existing health issues—had reportedly died from COVID-19 in Karachi amidst a notable increase in cases over the past two weeks.
All these fatalities occurred at Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), which has reported a steady rise in COVID-19 admissions—a trend described by experts as “unusual” for this particular time of year.
Officials at DUHS suspect that the current infections might be driven by the JN.1 subvariant of Omicron, a strain generally known to cause milder symptoms but still capable of inducing severe illness in vulnerable populations. “We’re going for gene sequencing to determine the exact variant responsible for the infections in Karachi,” an official stated.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Pakistan utilized a diverse range of vaccines from Chinese, Russian, European, and American manufacturers, including Sinopharm, Sinovac, CanSinoBio, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Moderna. The initial vaccination rollout prioritized frontline workers, followed by the elderly, and then the general adult population.
This combination of traditional inactivated virus vaccines and mRNA-based formulations provided a broad immunity shield, which health officials credit with helping limit the number of COVID-19 deaths in Pakistan to approximately 30,000, despite multiple waves of the virus and the spread of various variants, including Delta and Omicron.
