A private news outlet has reported on Friday that two additional cases of mpox, also known as monkeypox, have been identified in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), bringing the total number of cases in Pakistan to three this year.
The provincial health department confirmed the new cases on Friday.
This development follows the report of the first suspected mpox case of the year just a day earlier, which led the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) to release an advisory on managing the disease.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently raised the alarm over the mpox outbreak in Africa, declaring it a public health emergency of international concern after the virus spread from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to neighboring countries.
According to Salim Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Director General of Health Services, two of the three identified patients have been confirmed to have mpox. The third patient’s samples have been sent to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Islamabad for further confirmation. All three patients are currently in quarantine.
The provincial health department revealed that the viral infection was detected in these individuals upon their arrival from the United Arab Emirates. Although Pakistan has experienced cases of mpox in the past, it is still unclear which variant of the virus has been detected in the current patients.
Sajid Shah, a spokesperson for the health ministry, stated that there has been no confirmation of a new variant thus far. However, genome sequencing is underway for the confirmed patient’s sample. “Once that’s complete, we will be able to identify the strain,” Shah added.
The health ministry also noted that Pakistan has detected one suspected case of mpox in a patient who had recently arrived from a Gulf country. However, no new variant of mpox has been identified in the country, according to a statement quoted by Reuters.
On the global front, health officials have confirmed an infection with a new strain of the mpox virus in Sweden, linking it to the ongoing outbreak in Africa. Since the beginning of the current outbreak in January 2023, the Democratic Republic of Congo has reported 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths, primarily among children. So far this year, 548 people have succumbed to the disease in the DRC alone.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes mpox as a disease caused by the monkeypox virus, which can result in a painful rash, swollen lymph nodes, and fever, potentially leading to severe illness in some cases.
