ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has reminded the United Kingdom it forcefully acted to eliminate Covid-19 transmission and fared far better over the duration of the pandemic than its regional counterparts, following the uproar over the latter’s decision to retain the former on its red list of countries from which almost all travel is banned.
Pakistan, which reported its first confirmed cases of the contagious disease in February last year, experienced far fewer deaths, faster economic recovery and the preservation of a greater range of personal liberties as it fought to keep the threat at bay while avoiding stricter restrictions to keep the economy afloat.
Pakistan was placed on the red list along with the Philippines, Kenya, and Bangladesh in April. Days later, India was also put on the list. During the same time, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also postponed his scheduled trip to India for an indefinite period.
Over the weekend, London updated the ranking of Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and India, despite it displaying a worrying trend of Covid-19 pattern, moving it to its amber list: one pre-departure test, plus quarantine at home for 10 days on return in England for its nationals.
Conspicuously absent from the list was Pakistan, a development that garnered heavy criticism from MPs and ministers — both in Pakistan and the UK. Commenting on the move, Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari accused London of “showing clear political proclivity towards India”.
Responding to the development through a letter, Minister of State for National Health Services Dr Faisal Sultan told his British counterpart, Sajid Javid, London’s decision to keep Islamabad on the red list was received “with dismay” in Pakistan.
Reply from Dr Faisal Sultan to UK Health Secretary in response to UK govt’s “explanation” (C thread) on why Pak is on Red while India has moved to amber! The table exposes claims of UK govt that UK decision based on science & data! Clearly it has been a purely political decision! pic.twitter.com/5rKE8vFaAh
— Shireen Mazari (@ShireenMazari1) August 10, 2021
Shared by Mazari on Twitter Wednesday, the letter suggested that in order to reduce the health risk associated with travel during the crisis, England may shift attention towards “interventions focused directly on traveller, rather than on other metrics”.
He proposed a three-pronged approach — including a “valid proof of having received a WHO (World Health Organisation) approved Covid-19 vaccine, a PCR test (72 hours prior to departure) and a rapid antigen test at the airport, pre-departure” — as a measure to curb the risk of virus spread through travel instead of the London’s traffic light system.
The traffic light system means each country or region is classified as red, amber or green, with restrictions of varying severity to match.
England has attributed the move to a “combination of deteriorating epidemiological situation, combined with low testing rates and limited genomic surveillance” in Pakistan.
In a statement by the Department of Health and Social Care, London maintained that the aforementioned factors present “a high risk that an outbreak of a new variant, or existing VoC [variants of concern], will not be identified before it is imported to the UK”.
The authorities also raised concern over the “current trajectory of the pandemic in Pakistan”, which is currently experiencing a fourth wave of the pandemic.
Dr Sultan maintained that while surveillance data, on which the UK said its decision was based, was “undeniably important”, Pakistan’s overall track record of managing the pandemic held more significance.
He further compared Covid-19 statistics of Pakistan with those of India, Iran and Iraq, highlighting that its daily cases per million people, daily deaths per million people and total deaths per million people were the lowest in the region, while daily vaccinations per 100 people were the highest.
The minister further contended that tests being done in Pakistan constituted “a large enough sample size to be a sensitive and accurate barometer of the epidemic”.
He also mentioned other metrics, the data for which he said accurately presented the pandemic situation in the country.
However, he admitted that Pakistan lagged behind England in the sphere of genome sequencing, adding the results so far had shown that the Delta variant was the dominant strain in the country.
But, he also opined that using genomic sequencing as a performance measure and citing it as a reason to deny travel from Pakistan seemed unnecessary.
It “appears to introduce an unnecessarily larger metric, whereas disease security can be reliably achieved via somewhat more targeted measures,” he says.
Outlining the salient features of Pakistan’s Covid response, Dr Sultan also pointed out that the country’s efforts in this regard had been recognised by the United Nations General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir and WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“Forbes appreciated Pakistan’s efforts to tackle pandemic and to stabilise and grow Pakistan’s economy and The Economist ranked Pakistan 3rd among the countries for handling the coronavirus pandemic,” he recalled.
