Rapid PCR testing facility at Karachi airport to help UAE-bound passengers from Saturday

Work underway to make counters for rapid PCR testing at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport on Thursday, August 12, 2021. (Photo courtesy: Dr Farhan Essa)

• The United Arab Emirates recently lifted a travel ban from Pakistan and other countries, though it made the rapid PCR test mandatory for travelers
• Sialkot International Airport is the only place in Pakistan that has installed the facility until now

KARACHI: Passengers traveling to the United Arab Emirates will be able to get themselves tested for COVID-19 at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport from Saturday, Dr. Farhan Essa Abdullah, the chief executive of Essa Laboratory & Diagnostic Center, told Arab News on Thursday.
“The testing facility at the airport in Karachi will become functional in record time and start working from Saturday,” he said, adding his organization would employ 150 people to serve all UAE-bound passengers from 24 counters.
“It is a joint effort of Essa Laboratory, airline services and airport authorities,” he added.
The UAE lifted a ban on transit passenger traffic from India, Pakistan, Nigeria and other countries on August 5, though it required passengers traveling from these countries to present negative rapid PCR tests taken less than four hours before their departure.
Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had earlier maintained the country did not have enough resources to conduct these tests, adding that only rapid antigen testing facility was currently available at the country’s airports.
Speaking to Arab News, CAA spokesperson Ismail Khoso said laboratories were selected by airlines according to the requirements of their respective destinations.
“CAA will provide all possible facilities to the selected laboratories at all the international airports of the country,” he added.
Khoso told Arab News a day earlier the CAA had started installing rapid PCR testing facilities for passengers traveling to the UAE from Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi.
The rapid PCR test can determine a COVID-19 case even before a person becomes infectious, making it possible to isolate such individuals on time. Other tests detect viral proteins, revealing the patient’s condition at the peak of the infection.
“Different laboratories have informed [us] that they have procured rapid PCR testing machines and will be able to install them at airports within the next few days,” Khoso said on Wednesday. “We are also in touch with the foreign ministry to get relaxation from the UAE government.”
Sialkot International Airport is the only place in Pakistan that has installed the facility until now.
“We are working along the same lines [as Sialkot] and have asked airlines and UAE-approved labs to install rapid PCR testing machines at our major airports,” he said.
However, he added the process required more effort since other airports were bigger than the one in Sialkot and catered to hundreds of UAE-bound passengers every day.
Sialkot introduced the testing facility on Monday as an initiative by local businessmen.
The airport itself has the distinction of being the first privately owned public airport in Pakistan, built through funding and efforts by the business community of the city.
Along with the nearby cities of Gujranwala and Gujrat, Sialkot forms part of the so-called “Golden Triangle” of Pakistan’s industrial cities with export-oriented economies.