Incoming passengers are given swab tests, following which a sniffer dogs the wipe for the virus, he continued, adding that if the dog sits down after smelling the sample, the person is pronounced COVID-19 positive.
By Hajra Haroon
Passengers with covid-19 are now being identified by sniffer dogs at Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport.
The canines have been specifically trained to identify COVID-19 infection in international travellers.
The National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) sent a team to Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport to monitor the medical inspection of passengers from two inbound aeroplanes.
Rapid antigen testing is also carried out on travellers arriving in Peshawar from outside, according to a briefing given to the NCOC team.
The team claimed the coronavirus detection methods at the Peshawar airport were good, according to the airport’s manager, Obaidullah Abbasi.
He verified that coronavirus was being diagnosed among passengers using specialised sniffer dogs.
Incoming passengers are given swab tests, following which a dog sniffs the wipe for the virus, he continued, adding that if the dog sits down after smelling the sample, the person is pronounced COVID-19 positive.
With the aid of sniffer dogs, coronavirus has been found in four travellers at the Peshawar airport thus far. They were taken to a hospital and placed in quarantine.
Pakistan continues to see a drop in covid-19 infections, with the country’s positive rate falling below 4.42% for the fifth day in a row on Saturday.
According to the National Command and Operation Centre’s (NCOC) statistics, 73 additional individuals died as a result of the covid-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 20,680 throughout the country.
The NCOC said that 2,455 new infections had appeared in the previous 24 hours, bringing the overall number of cases to 916,239 throughout the nation.
Across the nation, the positivity rate is 4.42% percent. The number of recorded recoveries 836,702.
Sindh has recorded 315,410 cases so far, Punjab 338,377, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 131,775 cases, Islamabad 81,007 cases, Balochistan 25,001, Azad Jammu and Kashmir19,108 cases, and Gilgit Baltistan 5,561 cases.
Pakistan will offer walk-in Covid-19 vaccination to people aged 30 and up teachers over 18 years old from today (Saturday).
The decision was reached during a meeting of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Friday, which was chaired by Minister of Planning and Development Asad Umar. Following the meeting, the minister urged citizens aged 30 and up who had registered for the dose to get inoculated at any Covid-19 vaccination center the following day.
In a separate tweet, Umar stated that more than 5 million people in Pakistan have been vaccinated against Covid-19 since the immunization campaign began. He urged citizens to sign up for the vaccine and get inoculated, saying that widespread vaccination could help the government ease Covid-19 restrictions.
In the meantime, the NCOC has decided to open a walk-in vaccination clinic for teachers over the age of 18, in order to ensure a safe environment for education and examinations.
“Teachers can walk-in to any vaccination center with CNIC, stamped letter from the head of Institution / Teachers’ ID Card, and get themselves vaccinated,” NCOC tweeted.
The government opened vaccine registration for people aged 19 and up on May 27. By the end of this year, the government plans to vaccinate 70 million people against Covid-19.
Originally published at Pakistan observer