At least three patients have been diagnosed with monkeypox in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, provincial health authorities confirmed on Friday.
The first case of the disease this year in Pakistan was reported on Thursday, a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the ongoing mpox outbreak in Africa a global health emergency, the highest level of alarm under international health law. Agency reported.
Mpox is a viral disease related to the now-eradicated smallpox virus and can spread through close contact and through contaminated materials such as bed linens, clothing and needles, according to the WHO.
All the patients in Pakistan were found to have the virus after arriving from an Arab country, the department said.
However, it is crucial to understand whether this recent rise in Mpox cases is alarmingly dangerous or whether it will decrease over time without further consequences.
How dangerous is it and who is at risk?
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that while some outbreaks of the I mpox clade have killed up to 10% of people who fall ill, more recent outbreaks have had lower mortality rates.
The mortality rate of clade II is less than 0.2%.
People at risk for more severe infections include infants, people with severely weakened immune systems, and pregnant women.
According to Dr. Daniel Bausch, senior advisor for global health security at FIND, a global nonprofit focused on health equity, he believes that mpox surveillance is largely incomplete and there is much more to learn.
“This is a virus that is in the environment and presumably is maintained in small mammals in Africa, and we don't really have the proper diagnostics,” he said.
“It's not necessarily difficult to diagnose an mpox infection when you have a lab nearby, trained lab personnel, and the right technology. But of course, most of these cases are in very rural areas, so trying to get a sample and get it to a lab is a bit difficult.”
Our understanding of transmissibility and mortality risk may be biased by limitations that tend to detect only the most severe cases, he said.
Mpox Symptoms?
Initial symptoms are often flu-like and include fever, chills, fatigue, headache, and muscle weakness.
They are often followed by a painful or itchy rash, with raised lesions that crust over and disappear over a period of weeks.
