On Friday, the health department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northern Pakistan reported that three individuals had tested positive for the mpox virus, including one confirmed case from a gulf country.
The infection was discovered in these patients upon their arrival from the United Arab Emirates. The World Health Organization has recently declared the outbreak of this disease a public health emergency of international concern following the identification of a new variant of the virus.
Pakistan has had cases of mpox, also called monkeypox, previously. It was not immediately clear which variant was detected in the patients. Two of the patients had been confirmed to have mpox, said Salim Khan, the director general of health services for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A third patient’s samples had been sent to the National Health Institute in the capital, Islamabad. All three patients were being quarantined.
Global health officials on Thursday confirmed an infection with a new strain of the mpox virus in Sweden and linked it to a growing outbreak in Africa, the first sign of its spread outside the continent a day after the World Health Organization declared the disease a global public health emergency.
The WHO on Wednesday declared the outbreak in Africa a public health emergency of international concern, its highest level of alert, after cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo spread to nearby countries.
There have been 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths, mainly among children, in Congo since the current outbreak began in January 2023.
The disease, caused by the monkeypox virus, can cause a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes and fever and can make some people very ill, the WHO website says.
(With Inputs from Reuters)
