Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan has written a letter to the British government saying its decision to keep Pakistan in “red list” of countries due to coronavirus was not based on facts.
Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari shared the letter on her Twitter handle on Wednesday that included a chart that showed figures regarding coronavirus prevalence.
Mazari tweeted that it seemed the UK government’s decision was “a purely political decision.”
“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!” she wrote in her message.
The federal minister said in another tweet: “UK’s Conservative govt with a strong Indophiles’ presence playing discriminatory politics against Pakistan on Covid. The UK statement to which Dr Faisal has responded exposing its claims!”
THE LETTER: Dr Sultan’s detailed letter starts of by pointing out that UK’s decision to retain Pakistan on its red list and move other countries in the region to amber list has been received “with dismay” in Pakistan.
He clarified that Pakistan has “no interest in allowing” its nationals who pose a health risk to other societies to travel. This is a shared global objective, he added.
Dr Sultan questioned the UK government’s explanation on why Pakistan is still on the red list and addressed it with support from data on Pakistan’s COVID-19 response, testing rates, genomic surveillance and all other efforts being taken by the Pakistan government to tackle the pandemic and stabilise the spread of the virus.
The UK, in a statement to the Pakistan government sent on August 6, had said that “a combination of deteriorating epidemiological situation, combined with low testing rates and limited genomic surveillance presents a high risk that an outbreak of a new variant, or existing variant of concern will not be identified”.
On the “deteriorating epidemiological situation”, Dr Sultan presented a table comparing key indicators from Pakistan and some other countries in the region which currently sit on the amber list to illustrate what he referred to as “obvious disparities”.
He said that when looking at counties’ track record of managing the epidemic, “numbers alone, without context, can be deceptive”.
According to the table’s data, while an uptick was seen in the numbers in the last few weeks, Pakistan, at the time of addition into the red list had very low numbers as compared to the numbers from other countries on the amber list.
TEST RATES: The special assistant explained how the PCR tests in Pakistan were being conducted and highlighted that testing is done through “agreed upon national algorithms”. He explained how it makes for “accurate and timely data inputs”.
“We feel that the number of tests being done are a large enough sample size to be a sensitive and accurate barometer of the epidemic and the number, especially when seen with the percentage positivity rate, has accurately reflected the rise and fall of all the waves seen so far,” Dr Sultan wrote.
He also reiterated that all data is uploaded daily by the National Command and Operation Centre, the nerve centre of the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, on its website (covid.gov.pk).
Regarding genomic surveillance, the Pakistan government official agreed that the country does have limitations in sequencing compared to the UK. But he went on to provide the data that Pakistan does have available, highlighting that so far 854 samples have been sequenced in July and August 2021 and the details are shared with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He said additional steps are in place to scale up detection of variants and Pakistan welcomes the UK’s offer of partnership through the New Variant Assessment Platform.
He, however, said that to use genomic sequencing as a resin to deny travel from Pakistan “appears to introduce an unnecessary larger metric, whereas disease security can be reliable achieved via somewhat more targeted measures, vide infra”.
He also said that it was unclear what level of genomic sequencing surveillance would be deemed “enough” and questioned whether other counties were also being judged according to the same criteria.
Dr Sultan ended his letter with a suggestion to the UK on a three-pronged approach which may include valid proof of having received a WHO-approved vaccine, a PCR test (72 hours prior to departure) and a rapid antigen test at the airport, pre-departure.
“These measures ought to be able to provide the health security we are all collectively seeking,” wrote Dr Sultan.
He said he would be happy to meet or discuss these meausres with health experts in the UK.
