Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has recorded its first locally transmitted case of monkeypox (mpox), the province’s chief minister’s health adviser, Ihtisham Ali, confirmed on Sunday.
The infection was detected in a woman who was admitted to hospital on February 18 after experiencing fever and body aches, said Dr Fazal Majeed, the director of Public Health.
He further revealed that rashes appeared on her body and inside her mouth a day later after which Public Health Coordinator, Dr Muhammad Aamir Khan, reported the suspected case on February 20.
A team from the Public Health Section collected samples and sent them to the Public Health Reference Laboratory at Khyber Medical University in Peshawar, where the deadly disease was confirmed on February 21.
This case marks a departure from previous infections in the province, which were linked solely to international travel.
However, in this case, the infected woman’s husband had recently returned from a Gulf country. While he initially showed no symptoms upon his arrival in Pakistan, he was later confirmed to be infected with mpox as well, according to Majeed.
Mpox is a viral disease related to the now-eradicated smallpox virus and can spread through any close contact and through contaminated materials like sheets, clothing and needles, according to the World Health Organisation, which declared the recent spread of the virus a global emergency in August last year.
Initial symptoms are typically flu-like that include fever, chills, exhaustion, headache and muscle weakness. They are often followed by a painful or itchy rash with raised lesions that scab over and resolve over a period of weeks.
Those at risk of having more severe infections include infants, people with severely weakened immune systems and pregnant women.
In the last two months, two cases have already been reported in the same province, both involving foreign travel.
One of these cases involved a five-month-old infant who had returned from Qatar while the other involved a passenger returning from Dubai.