Second mpox case reported in as many days from Peshawar

ISLAMABAD: Pakis­tan reported the second case of mpox in as many days on Sunday, taking the total number of cases to four since the World Health Organi­sation (WHO) dec­lared the disease an emergency of international concern on August 14.
The latest case, like the three before, has been reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
National Health Ser­vices (NHS) Ministry spokes­man Sajid Shah said the patient is a 47-year-old man who arrived from a Gulf country on August 29.
The man, a resident of Peshawar, was isolated by the Border Health Ser­vices (BHS) at the Bacha Khan International Air­port for showing symptoms linked to the mpox virus.
Replying to a question, Mr Shah said authorities had started tracing people with whom the patient might have come in contact to stop local transmission.
Earlier on Thursday, a 51-year-old man, who arri­ved in Peshawar from Saudi Arabia, was isolated at the airport for the same reason.
His test samples were sent to the Public Health Reference Lab at Khyber Medical University which returned positive on Friday.
The patient has been isolated at Services Hospital, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Health Director Dr Irshad Ali Roghani told Dawn.
Pakistan is yet to report any local transmission of mpox as all four patients arrived in the country from abroad and were isolated by the BHS at airports.
In a statement, Prime Minister’s Coordinator on Health Dr Malik Mukhtar Ahmad Bharath lauded the role of BHS in monitoring incoming passengers.
He claimed that Pakistan’s surveillance system was one of the best in the world. “BHS has been screening all incoming passengers to avoid chances of local transmission,” Mr Bharath said, adding that federal and provincial governments have been collaborating to stop the virus from spreading.
According to Mr Shah, the global mpox virus strain has been categorised into two primary clades: clade I and clade II. The global outbreak from 2022 to 2023 was predominantly linked to clade II, which is known to cause milder symptoms compared to clade I.
The strain in Pakistan has been classified as clade IIb, a subclade of clade II, according to the official. “Currently, the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is primarily associated with clade 1b (a subclade of clade 1),” he said, adding that as of now, there have been no reported cases of clade I in Pakistan.
Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2024