Sixth mpox case detected at Islamabad airport: health ministry
Pakistan’s sixth case of mpox virus has been detected at the Islamabad International Airport, the health ministry confirmed on Monday.
According to the health ministry spokesperson, Sajid Shah, the 44-year-old patient had arrived from a Gulf country, and the Border Health Services (BHS) detected the virus while conducting screening at the airport.
The patient has been admitted to the isolation ward at Pims hospital and is healthy, the spokesperson said.
Dr Mukhtar Bharath, Coordinator to the Prime Minister on National Health Services, said that BHS has screened 630,000 at the Islamabad airport.
“The Ministry of Health is ensuring the monitoring of this system,” Dr Bharath said, adding that effective measures were being taken to protect people.
The federal and provincial governments are taking all measures and tools to deal with mpox, he added.
On Wednesday, Pakistan’s fifth mpox case was confirmed in Peshawar. The 33-year-old patient had also arrived from a Gulf country at Islamabad International Airport before travelling to Peshawar.
The four mpox cases preceding this were all detected in Peshawar. On September 8, all four patients in KP had recovered and were discharged from isolation after they tested negative for the zoonotic ailment.
On Friday, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said that a total of 146,722 travellers were examined at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport in August.
On Saturday, two passengers suspected of having mpox landed at Jinnah International Airport and were taken to a hospital to keep them under observation.
Both passengers, one aged 44 and the other 32 had arrived from Saudi Arabia and were suspected of having the viral infection during screening at the airport.
One of them tested negative later in the day. The lab report of the other passenger, a resident of Karachi, was still awaited.
Last month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the recent outbreak of the disease as a public health emergency of international concern after the new variant of the virus, Clade 1b, was identified.
The Clade 1b variant has triggered global concern due to the ease with which it spreads through routine close contact.
However, the mpox outbreak is not another Covid-19, the WHO has said, because much is already known about the virus and the means to control it.