ISLAMABAD: Amid a heightened state of alert on all entry points in the country, Border Health Services (BHS) at Islamabad Airport on Monday spotted another suspected case of mpox.

“The 47-year-old suspect who arrived from a Gulf country was shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and admitted to the isolation ward. His sample has been sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH) for the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test,” Pims focal person for mpox Dr Naseem Akhtar told Dawn.

The infectious diseases expert said the suspected patient, who belonged to Azad Jammu and Kashmir, works as a labourer in a Gulf country. She said the condition of the patient is not serious and he will recover soon. “We will start contact tracing once the sample is declared positive by NIH,” she said.

Health Ministry spokesperson Sajid Shah said it was a good sign that the suspected passenger has been identified and isolated at the airport. “It shows that the country has been strictly following international health regulations and the practice will reduce the chances of outbreak of local transmission of the disease,” he said.

Health ministry official says confirmed case not linked to dangerous new strain of virus

He said that Prime Minister’s Coordi­nator for Health Dr Malik Mukhtar on Monday visited the Islamabad International Airport and inspected screening arrangements to ensure no suspected patient of mpox enters the country without being identified.

“Dr Mukhtar also took briefing from the BHS staff and inspected arrangements made for screening of passengers at all entry points so that international health regulations are ensured,” he said.

The first person who was found positive for mpox, came from a Gulf country and reached Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Later, he went to a hospital for some other complications, but was diagnosed with mpox.

Sajid Shah said that mpox virus strain, in the first case of country from Mardan, has been classified as Clade IIb.

“Mpox virus is categorised into two primary clades: Clade I and Clade II. The previous global outbreak from 2022 to 2023 was predominantly linked to Clade II, which is known to cause milder symptoms compared to Clade I. Currently, the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is primarily associated with Clade Ib. As of now, there have been no reported cases of Clade I in the country,” he said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the recent outbreak of the disease a public health emergency of international concern after a new variant was identified.

The WHO last week sounded the highest level of alert over the outbreak of the disease in Africa after cases in the DRC spread to nearby countries. There have been 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths, mainly among children, in DRC since the current outbreak of the disease in January 2023.

Global health officials last week confirmed an infection with the new strain of mpox in Sweden and linked it to a growing outbreak in Africa, the first sign of its spread outside the continent.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2024