The national health coordinator of Pakistan verified on Friday that the country’s second case of the mpox virus previously known as monkeypox had been recorded at the Peshawar airport. The new viral variety, Clade 1b, was discovered last week, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to designate the latest disease outbreak as a public health emergency of international significance.
Because of how easily the Clade 1b form spreads through regular close contact, it has caused alarm on a global scale. However, the WHO has stated that the mpox outbreak is not another Covid-19 because a lot of information about the virus and methods of control are already available.
“A second case of mpox has been reported in Pakistan, which has come from a Gulf country,” PTV News said Dr. Malik Mukhtar Ahmad, the PM’s health coordinator. “The patient was moved to a hospital by the Peshawar airport health desk,” Dr. Mukhtar continued. The case’s viral strain has not yet been confirmed, according to the health coordinator.
Earlier this week, the health ministry made it clear that no cases of the clade 1b strain of the disease have been diagnosed, and that the first case of mpox to be found in Pakistan was of the clade 2 form.
Dr. Mukhtar went on to state that a “effective system of screening and surveillance at all airports” was being used by the health ministry to ensure ongoing situational monitoring. According to PTV News, Dr. Mukhtar stated that Border Health Services personnel were assigned to airports and entrance points to monitor suspected cases and make sure that “serious steps to keep the public safe from epidemics” were taken.
The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) focal person, Dr. Naseem Akhtar, reported on Monday that the airport authorities had referred a 47-year-old Middle Eastern traveler to Pims because they suspected him of having mpox. The person was a resident of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and was employed as a laborer in the Middle East, according to Dr. Akhtar.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) sent an urgent advisory regarding the outbreak one day ago, according to a report by Radio Pakistan. About prevention, detection, and response methods, the advice sought to give all pertinent stakeholders a thorough understanding of the current state of affairs both domestically and internationally.
After cases from the Democratic Republic of the Congo spread to neighboring countries last week, the WHO raised the alert level for the outbreak in Africa to its highest level. In the DRC, since the current outbreak started in January 2023, there have been 27,000 cases and over 1,100 deaths, most of them involving children.
The first indications of the clade 1b variant’s dissemination outside of Africa are the one case each of Sweden and Thailand that have been confirmed thus far. To stop the mpox outbreak, the WHO has not recommended any travel restrictions, nevertheless.
The illness manifests as pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms. Children, pregnant women, and those with compromised immune systems are more susceptible to complications, even though the disease is typically mild but can still be fatal.
