KARACHI – A patient diagnosed with Monkeypox (mpox virus) in Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has escaped while health officials started looking for him to curb the spread of infectious disease.

It has been learnt that the patient was tested positive for virus in Peshawar when he returned from Saudi Arabia. When health officials visited his home to provide health guidelines, they found the house locked. District Health Officer of his hometown in Dir also confirmed that the patient was not there.

Amid the dire situation, authorities are now increasing efforts to investigate the situation. World Health Organization WHO classified the recent outbreak, involving a new strain of the virus, as global public health emergency was declared.

Amid the global emergency, Pakistan also experienced monkeypox cases, but the variant detected in the current cases remains unknown.

Mpox Alert

World Health Organization (WHO) classified mpox in Africa as a global health emergency. Over the past year, more than 14,000 cases have been documented, with over 500 deaths, mainly in Congo. A potentially more contagious strain of the virus has emerged, raising concerns about further cross-border transmission.

Mpox, a virus related to smallpox, generally causes mild symptoms but can lead to severe rashes and lesions. In response to a sharp rise in cases across 13 African nations, African health authorities have also declared mpox a public health emergency.

The new strain is particularly worrisome due to its difficulty in detection and increased potential for transmission. Children under 15 in Congo have been disproportionately impacted, accounting for most of the cases and deaths.