ISLAMABAD: A 19-year-old woman has tested positive for monkeypox in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad taking the nationwide tally to four, a government official confirmed on Sunday, insisting there has been no evidence of localized transmission of the infectious disease.
Monkeypox, or Mpox, is a zoonotic infection which can spread from animals to humans. The viral disease can also be contracted from one person to another and cause high fever and body pains.
“The patient was referred to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) by authorities at the Islamabad airport on Saturday as she was having some symptoms of Mpox,” Dr. Hyder Wajid, a spokesperson for PIMS, told Arab News.
“She is the first female Pakistani patient to have tested positive for Mpox.”
Wajid said the patient was in stable condition and under observation at the hospital, while authorities were working on tracing her contacts and keeping them in isolation until they test negative.
“There is no evidence of localized transmission of the infectious viral disease so far,” he confirmed, adding that an isolation ward had been set up at the hospital to keep possible patients under “strict observation” of doctors and paramedics.
Pakistan confirmed its first three cases of Mpox in April, with all three of the affected individuals arriving from abroad. They all have now tested negative for the disease.
The government has put airports on high alert to ensure screening of inbound passengers and has requested the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide a monkeypox vaccine for frontline healthcare workers.
The most common symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy and swollen lymph nodes, followed or accompanied by the development of a rash which may last for two to three weeks, according to the WHO.
Sajid Hussain Shah, a spokesperson for the Pakistani health ministry, said a control room had already been set up at Islamabad’s National Institute of Health (NIH) to look into the disease, while provincial health authorities had also been alerted to closely follow all developments related to Mpox in their respective areas.
“The detection of this case in the female patient shows that our medical screening and surveillance systems are working well at our airports,” Shah told Arab News.
Shah advised the public and healthcare workers not to panic and worry about the disease since it would neither spread during incubation nor have silent transmission like COVID-19.
The WHO declared Mpox a public health emergency of international concern in July 2022. There are currently over 87,000 confirmed cases of the disease internationally, with 119 deaths.
