By Chathushka Perera
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CWBN)_ According Pakistan’s Foreign Office Spokesperson, Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has informed that it will be temporarily suspending the issuance of visa to twelve countries, including Pakistan, Turkey, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kenya and Libya citing concerns over a second wave of Covid-19.
The categories of visas affected by the suspension have not been revealed, however, visas that have already been issued to travellers from the above twelve states will remain valid.
Pakistan faced a similar suspension during the first seven months of the year, as the number of Covid infections rose, after it was reported that 30 Covid-positive travellers from Pakistan had arrived in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile commercial flights from 31 countries, including Pakistan were banned accounting “high risk”, in August.
Although Pakistan has a population of 222 million people, the country maintains a considerably low testing rate of 22,719 per 1 million, and have conducted about 5,055,000 tests thus far. Hence, 365,927 infections and over 7,248 deaths have been reported, noting a recovery rate of 89.3%.
The number of infections are expected to increase further amid the political tensions rising in the county, giving way to a mass rallies conducted in major cities, fuelled by economic uncertainties. In 2018, Pakistan reported a rather low growth rate of 5.5% and 1.9% in 2019. Following the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020, the economy contracted into a recession of 0.4%.
Edited by Elishya Perera
