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Alarm bells have been triggered across Pakistan as authorities report a swift increase in mpox cases, with 11 confirmed infections across the country.
Dr. Malik Mukhtar Ahmad, the PM’s Coordinator on Health, detailed the distribution of these cases during a press conference in Islamabad. According to Dr. Ahmad, Punjab has recorded four cases, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa three, Islamabad two, and Sindh and Balochistan one case each.
The majority of those infected have recently returned from Gulf countries. In response to the rising cases, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif convened a meeting in Islamabad to address the potential risks associated with the mpox outbreak and to review the country’s preparedness for managing the situation.
During the meeting, Shehbaz Sharif instructed officials to implement preventive measures to contain the spread of the virus. The recent emergence of mpox in Pakistan follows the country’s first reported case on Friday. This development comes just one day after Sweden identified its first infection outside Africa of a new, more dangerous strain of mpox that has led to numerous fatalities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency of international concern due to the surge in mpox cases in Africa, which also affects Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. On Thursday, Sweden’s Public Health Agency confirmed a case of the Clade 1b subclade, the same new strain that has been causing significant outbreaks in the DRC since September 2023. The infected individual had traveled to an area in Africa heavily impacted by this strain.
