AMMAN — The
Ministry of Health has prepared a “set of strict
measures” to prevent the Indian variant of
COVID-19 from entering Jordan,
member of the national committee for epidemics, Basem Al-Hajjawi, said on
Sunday.
اضافة اعلان
Under the measures, non-Jordanians trying to come into the
country who have previously been to India are not permitted entry until 14 days
after they have left India, while Jordanians who have been to India will
undergo institutional quarantine, or quarantine that is institutionally
supervised, for a duration of 14 days.
“Jordanians coming from India are subject to security and
health monitoring, to prevent the spread of the Indian variant in the Kingdom,”
Hajjawi said.
Minister of Health Fares Al-Hawari had announced earlier in
the day that there were three cases of the Indian variant that had already been
detected in Jordan — two in Amman and one in Zarqa — noting that the carriers
have not left the country recently. However, Hawari said that the variant did
not necessarily come from abroad, but might have been the result of a local
mutation.
The minister also announced that seven Jordanians had
arrived at Queen Alia International Airport, and that they had traveled through
Arab Gulf countries, before departing from India. None of them are carrying the
Indian variant according to the minister, he noted however, that they will be
quarantined for 14 days “as a precautionary measure.”
In remarks to Jordan News, Hajjawi said that at the
moment, the main objective is to intensify the vaccination campaign, as that is
the only way to fight off all variants of the virus.
The Health Ministry’s secretary general for pandemic
affairs, Adel Balbisi said that the three cases recently discovered carrying
the Indian variant have been quarantining at home for the past five days,
stressing that all those who came in contact with them have been tested.
Dr Mohammad Hasan Al-Tarawneh, a chest diseases, critical
care, and sleep disorders consulting physician, said that the presence of the
three cases in the Kingdom indicates that the variant has been around
undiagnosed for some time.
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes the variant,
first identified in India last December, as a “variant of interest”, suggesting
it may have mutations that would make the virus more transmissible, cause more
severe disease, or evade vaccine immunity. Other strains with known risks, such
as those first detected in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa, have
been categorized as “variants of concern”, a higher threat level.
Tarawneh, however, expects that the WHO will upgrade the
variant’s classification “soon”, referring to the fast transmission rate
witnessed in India.
Vaccine producers
Pfizer and Moderna have announced that
their vaccines demonstrated high efficacy against various variants, but Hajjawi
stresses that “all vaccines are effective, but to varying degrees.”
For his part, member of the board of trustees of the
National Human Rights Center Ibrahim Bdour said called for quarantining those
infected with the Indian variant in “special isolation sites,” to prevent the spread,
noting that the variant can still be controlled due to the small number of
those infected.
Read more national news
.jpg)
.jpg)
