PESHAWAR   -   Within a period of a fortnight, a third case of monkeypox virus infection was confirmed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday.

Director Public Health Dr Irshad Roghani in a message informed, “A 51-year-old traveler belonging to Orakzai district of KP was detected with mpox symptoms at Bacha Khan airport while coming back from abroad”.  Dr Irshad informed that the suspected patient was held at the airport during the screening of incoming passengers by medical teams and forthwith shifted to Police Line hospital at Peshawar for diagnosis testing.

The Rapid Response teams at Police Lines Hospital collected blood samples and sent them to Public Health Reference Laboratory at Khyber Medical University (KMU) which confirmed mpox infection in the patient, Dr. Roghani added.

The patient is stable and is admitted to the Isolation Ward of Police Line Hospital for proper treatment of infection, he added.

It is to be mentioned here that this is the third confirmed case of mpox infection in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa reported in a period of a fortnight.

The first case of mpox in KP during the current year was reported on August 15, 2024, soon after the declaration of a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on August 14 in the wake of the growing outbreak in Africa and emergency of a new variant of virus in some countries.

All the infected patients in KP are travelers who arrived in their homeland from abroad during the last couple of weeks.

The first case was reported in a person belonging to the Mardan district, the second in Nowshera and the third one among a resident of Orakzai district.

The genetic sequencing of earlier two cases of mpox in KP revealed that the patients are infected with Clade 2B strain.

Soon after the detection of the first case, screening of passengers started at airport and border points and so far around 20,901 individuals have been screened at Peshawar Airport, while 21,040 individuals have undergone screening at the Torkham border.  

Meanwhile, Director Public Health KP, Dr. Irshad Roghani has said that the provincial Health department is fully vigilant and taking all possible measures to detect and prevent the spread of the virus in the region.