Health Authorities Confirm New Case from KP Province, Travelled from Gulf Country
Pakistani health authorities have reported a second case of MPOX (Monkeypox) in the country, with the affected person being shifted to a hospital for treatment.
According to Dr. Malik Mukhtar Ahmad, the Prime Minister’s coordinator for health, the new patient is from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province in northern Pakistan and had recently returned from a Gulf country.
“A second case of mpox has been reported in Pakistan, which has come from a Gulf country,” Dr. Mukhtar was quoted as saying by PTV News.
The health desk at the Peshawar airport intervened and immediately shifted the patient to a hospital for medical care, the coordinator added.
However, Dr. Mukhtar did not specify whether the strain of the virus for this new case has been confirmed so far.
Earlier this week, the health ministry clarified that the first MPOX case detected in Pakistan was of the clade 2 variety, and no cases of the more severe clade 1b strain have been diagnosed in the country.
Dr. Mukhtar further stated that the health ministry is ensuring continuous monitoring of the situation through an “effective system of screening and surveillance at all airports.” The staff of Border Health Services have been engaged to scrutinize suspected cases and take “serious steps to keep the public safe from epidemics,” he said.
The latest development comes after a 47-year-old traveler from the Middle East was referred to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) in Islamabad on suspicion of being infected with MPOX earlier this week. The WHO has sounded its highest level of alert over the MPOX outbreak in Africa, with over 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths reported, mainly among children, in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the current outbreak began in January 2023.
