NEW DELHI: Indian authorities reported on Monday Asia’s first possible monkeypox fatality after the death of a man who recently returned from United Arab Emirates testing positive.
Kerala state’s health ministry said tests on the 22-year-old “showed that the man had monkeypox.”
Three monkeypox-related fatalities have so far been reported outside Africa in an outbreak that the World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency.
The Indian man died in Kerala on July 30 around a week after returning from the UAE and being taken to hospital.
It was unclear however whether monkeypox was the cause of death.
“The youth had no symptoms of monkeypox. He had been admitted to a hospital with symptoms of encephalitis and fatigue,” the Indian Express daily quoted Kerala’s health minister Veena George as saying on Sunday.
Twenty people identified as high risk of infection were being kept under observation, she added, including family members, friends who played football with the man and medical staff.
According to the WHO, more than 18,000 monkeypox cases have been detected throughout the world outside Africa since the beginning of May, most of them in Europe.
Spain last week recorded two monkeypox-related deaths and Brazil one.
It is however unclear if monkeypox actually caused the three fatalities, with Spanish authorities as of Sunday still carrying out autopsies and Brazilian authorities saying its deceased patient had other “serious conditions.”
The WHO’s European office said on Saturday that more monkeypox-related deaths can be expected.
“With the continued spread of monkeypox in Europe, we will expect to see more deaths,” Catherine Smallwood, Senior Emergency Officer at WHO Europe, said in a statement.
The goal needs to be “interrupting transmission quickly in Europe and stopping this outbreak,” she said.
India has reported at least four cases, with the first recorded on July 15 in another man who returned to Kerala from the UAE.
Kerala’s health ministry said in its statement on Monday that a high-level team from the state medical board would probe the death.
Primary tests from the National Institute of Virology in the city of Pune showed that the man had the variant from West Africa and that more genetic tests would be conducted.
“The disease is nobody’s fault. Those who have symptoms should inform the health department so that the spread can be contained,” the ministry said, adding that there was “no need to panic.”
It added that the man’s family only informed doctors on July 30 result of tests conducted in Dubai on July 19, by which time he was in a critical condition.
It added that there were 165 passengers on the same flight from UAE but that “nobody is a close contact.”
Monkeypox, so called because it was first discovered in a monkey, is related to the deadly smallpox virus, which was eradicated in 1980, but is far less severe.
Early signs of the disease include a high fever, swollen lymph glands and a chickenpox-like rash.
In May 2022, a flurry of cases was detected in countries outside Africa in people with no travel links to the region.
The WHO last month declared the outbreak to be a global health emergency — the highest alarm it can sound.
![]()
India reports Asia’s first possible monkeypox death
Short Url
https://arab.news/cwzdg
India reports Asia’s first possible monkeypox death
- Kerala state’s health ministry said tests on the 22-year-old “showed that the man had monkeypox”
- Three monkeypox-related fatalities have so far been reported outside Africa
Russian poisonings aim to kill — and send a message
- Neurotoxin epibatidine, found in Ecuadoran frogs, was identified in laboratory analyzes of samples from Navalny’s body
- Even if a poisoning can fail — some targets survived, such as Yushchenko and Skripal — it also serves to send a message
PARIS: Polonium, Novichok and now dart frog poison: the finding that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed with a rare toxin has revived the spectre of Moscow’s use of poisons against opponents — a hallmark of its secret services, according to experts.
The neurotoxin epibatidine, found in Ecuadoran frogs, was identified in laboratory analyzes of samples from Navalny’s body, the British, Swedish, French, German and Dutch governments said in a joint statement released on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference.
“Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin,” said Britain’s Foreign Office, with the joint statement pointing to Russia as the prime suspect.
The Kremlin on Monday rejected what it called the “biased and baseless” accusation it assassinated Navalny, a staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin who died on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence in a Russian Arctic prison colony.
But the allegations echo other cases of opponents being poisoned in connection — proven or suspected — with Russian agents.
In 2006, the Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was killed by polonium poison in London. Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko, campaigning against a Russian-backed candidate for the presidency, was disfigured by dioxin in 2004. And the nerve agent Novichok was used in the attempted poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018.
“We should remain cautious, but this hypothesis is all the more plausible given that Navalny had already been the target of an assassination attempt (in 2020) on a plane involving underwear soaked with an organophosphate nerve agent, Novichok, which is manufactured only in Russia,” said Olivier Lepick, a fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research specializing in chemical weapons.
Toxin ‘never been used’
“To my knowledge, epibatidine has never been used for assassinations,” Lepick added.
Until now, the substance was mainly known for its effect on animals that try to attack Ecuadoran poison dart frogs.
“It’s a powerful neurotoxin that first hyperstimulates the nervous system in an extremely violent way and then shuts it down. So you’ll convulse and then become paralyzed, especially in terms of breathing,” said Jerome Langrand, director of the Paris poison control center.
But to the scientist, using this substance to poison Navalny is “quite unsettling.”
“One wonders, why choose this particular poison? If it was to conceal a poisoning, it’s not the best substance. Or is it meant to spread an atmosphere of fear, to reinforce an image of power and danger with the message: ‘We can poison anywhere and with anything’?” he said.
Russian ‘calling card’
For many experts, the use of poison bears a Russian signature.
“It’s something specific to the Soviet services. In the 1920s, Lenin created a poison laboratory called ‘Kamera’ (’chamber’ in Russian), Lab X. This laboratory grew significantly under Stalin, and then under his successors Khrushchev and Brezhnev... It was this laboratory that produced Novichok,” said Andrei Kozovoi, professor of Russian history at the University of Lille.
“The Russians don’t have a monopoly on it, but there is a dimension of systematization, with considerable resources put in place a very long time ago — the creation of the poison laboratory, which developed without any restrictions,” he added.
Even if a poisoning can fail — some targets survived, such as Yushchenko and Skripal — it also serves to send a message, and acted as “a calling card” left by the Russian services, according to Kozovoi.
“Poison is associated in the collective imagination and in psychology with a terrible, agonizing death. The use of chemical substances or poisons carries an explicit intention to terrorize the target and, in cases such as Litvinenko, Skripal or Navalny, to warn anyone who might be tempted to betray Mother Russia or become an opponent,” said Lepick.
“A neurotoxin, a radioactive substance, or a toxic substance is much more frightening than an explosive or being shot to death.”
The neurotoxin epibatidine, found in Ecuadoran frogs, was identified in laboratory analyzes of samples from Navalny’s body, the British, Swedish, French, German and Dutch governments said in a joint statement released on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference.
“Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin,” said Britain’s Foreign Office, with the joint statement pointing to Russia as the prime suspect.
The Kremlin on Monday rejected what it called the “biased and baseless” accusation it assassinated Navalny, a staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin who died on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence in a Russian Arctic prison colony.
But the allegations echo other cases of opponents being poisoned in connection — proven or suspected — with Russian agents.
In 2006, the Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was killed by polonium poison in London. Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko, campaigning against a Russian-backed candidate for the presidency, was disfigured by dioxin in 2004. And the nerve agent Novichok was used in the attempted poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018.
“We should remain cautious, but this hypothesis is all the more plausible given that Navalny had already been the target of an assassination attempt (in 2020) on a plane involving underwear soaked with an organophosphate nerve agent, Novichok, which is manufactured only in Russia,” said Olivier Lepick, a fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research specializing in chemical weapons.
Toxin ‘never been used’
“To my knowledge, epibatidine has never been used for assassinations,” Lepick added.
Until now, the substance was mainly known for its effect on animals that try to attack Ecuadoran poison dart frogs.
“It’s a powerful neurotoxin that first hyperstimulates the nervous system in an extremely violent way and then shuts it down. So you’ll convulse and then become paralyzed, especially in terms of breathing,” said Jerome Langrand, director of the Paris poison control center.
But to the scientist, using this substance to poison Navalny is “quite unsettling.”
“One wonders, why choose this particular poison? If it was to conceal a poisoning, it’s not the best substance. Or is it meant to spread an atmosphere of fear, to reinforce an image of power and danger with the message: ‘We can poison anywhere and with anything’?” he said.
Russian ‘calling card’
For many experts, the use of poison bears a Russian signature.
“It’s something specific to the Soviet services. In the 1920s, Lenin created a poison laboratory called ‘Kamera’ (’chamber’ in Russian), Lab X. This laboratory grew significantly under Stalin, and then under his successors Khrushchev and Brezhnev... It was this laboratory that produced Novichok,” said Andrei Kozovoi, professor of Russian history at the University of Lille.
“The Russians don’t have a monopoly on it, but there is a dimension of systematization, with considerable resources put in place a very long time ago — the creation of the poison laboratory, which developed without any restrictions,” he added.
Even if a poisoning can fail — some targets survived, such as Yushchenko and Skripal — it also serves to send a message, and acted as “a calling card” left by the Russian services, according to Kozovoi.
“Poison is associated in the collective imagination and in psychology with a terrible, agonizing death. The use of chemical substances or poisons carries an explicit intention to terrorize the target and, in cases such as Litvinenko, Skripal or Navalny, to warn anyone who might be tempted to betray Mother Russia or become an opponent,” said Lepick.
“A neurotoxin, a radioactive substance, or a toxic substance is much more frightening than an explosive or being shot to death.”
Latest updates
Recommended
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.