Pakistan has confirmed its first case of the COVID-19 Omicron variant in its most populous city of Karachi, the country's National Institute of Health (NIH) said on Monday.

"The NIH has been able to confirm that a recently suspected sample from Karachi is indeed the Omicron variant," the NIH said in a Tweet. "This is the first confirmed case, but continued surveillance of suspected samples is in place to identify the trends."