Pakistan’s mpox case tally rises to 4

ISLAMABAD: Another passenger who arrived in Islamabad from Saudi Arabia on Saturday was diagnosed with mpox, taking Pakistan’s case tally to four.

A female lab technician, who landed at Islamabad airport from Makkah, tested positive for the viral infection, Dr Nasim Akhtar, head of infectious diseases department at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Islamabad, said.

The expert said the mpox patient had been shifted to the isolation ward of the PIMS hospital in the federal capital.

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Health (NIH) has also confirmed that a 19-year-old woman is diagnosed with mpox.

All four mpox patients in Pakistan arrived from Saudi Arabia. Of them, three patients belong to Islamabad and one Karachi, the NIH added.

The officials at the Federal Ministry of Health said there is no evidence of local spread of the disease in the country.

Mpox (monkeypox) is a viral illness caused by the monkeypox virus, a species of the genus Orthopoxvirus. Two different clades exist — clade I and clade II.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that the common symptoms of monkeypox or mpox are a skin rash or mucosal lesions which can last 2–4 weeks and are accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy, swollen lymph nodes.

Mpox can be transmitted to humans through physical contact with someone who is infectious, with contaminated materials, or with infected animals.

The disease is treated with supportive care. Vaccines and therapeutics developed for smallpox and approved for use in some countries can be used for mpox in some circumstances.

Since May 2022, a global outbreak of human monkeypox infections has been reported in over 78,000 people.