Pakistan says the B.1.617 variant of the Coronavirus, which was first detected in India, is not present in the country even though it lacks the specialised kits required to detect it. Medical researchers have detected “some unknown strain” of the virus making up 15 per cent of total infections but in the absence of proper kits, nobody knows what it is. Thailand claims to have found the virus in a family that arrived recently from Pakistan but the establishment in Islamabad says that is “out of the question”.
