Twenty-eight passengers, coming from Bahrain to Peshawar, tested positive for coronavirus at the Bacha Khan International Airport on Tuesday.
The airport’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Obaid-ur-Rehman Abbasi said rapid antigen tests were conducted on 130 passengers who arrived at the airport from Bahrain.
“The passengers who tested positive for the virus have been handed over to the district administration,” he said, adding that various areas of the airport had also been disinfected after the development.
A week earlier, the CAA had noted, “with grave concern”, that passengers arriving in Pakistan from mostly Gulf countries, were testing positive for coronavirus.
“Upon conducting an investigation into the issue, it has been found that passengers travelled to Pakistan using fake PCR negative test results and endangered not only passengers travelling with them, but also undermined the intense efforts being made at the national level to curb the spread of Covid-19,” said the authority, in a notification that was released on May 10.
“The onus of contributing towards this national cause does not fall on the authority alone but is a responsibility that has to be shared by all concerned stakeholders including airline operators,” the notification stated.
The development is a worrying one as Pakistan, like many countries around the world, continues to struggle with the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
The current positive cases in the country stand at 882,928 with a positivity rate of 8.2%.
