Pakistan fails to find the patient with mpox after detecting the case, introduces tighter screening at airport

Pakistan said that it is introducing a new screening process at airports after the country struggled to record the mpox cases. Earlier this week, Pakistan’s health department confirmed one case of mpox was detected in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The authorities noted that this was the first case of mpox in the country this year and mentioned that the victim of infection came from a Gulf country.

Hours later the Pakistani authorities issued another statement in which they stated that three cases of the viral infection were detected in the region this week on arrival from the UAE. However, that statement was withdrawn immediately, raising many questions.

The Pakistani authorities are yet to confirm whether the infected individual is suffering from the new clade 1b variant of mpox. The variant has already sparked commotion in Africa, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to refer to the outbreak as a “global public health emergency”.

The location of the confirmed mpox patient is ‘unknown’ 

The ministry stated that the sequencing of a sample from the Khyber Pakhtunkwa patient is underway to determine the variant of mpox. “Once that’s done, we will be able to say what strain this is,” the health ministry said, adding that the “screening system at airports and entry points is being further strengthened," The Independent reported.

However, what is concerning is the fact that the location of the patient confirmed with mpox is currently unknown within Pakistan. Authorities suspect that the patient might have gone to another district after providing samples for further testing.

“When we visited his home in Mardan, it was locked from the outside and his neighbours told us that the family has left for Dir,” the district health office (DHO) said. “We approached our fellow colleagues of the health department in Dir district, but they couldn’t trace him even in Dir,” he added.

The health ministry said that it was carrying out contact tracing of the patient when they realised that the infected individual was no longer in his home.

World ramps up precautionary measures

The case in Pakistan prompted China to announce that it would begin screening travellers for the virus. Amid the chaos, the UK Health Security Agency said there were no cases of the virus in the UK and the risk was considered low. However, they noted that planning was underway to prepare for any cases in the future. After detecting the first case, the Stockholm-based ECDC said more imported cases to Europe were “highly likely”.

“Due to the close links between Europe and Africa, we must be prepared for more imported clade I cases,” ECDC director Pamela Rendi-Wagner said in a statement.

It is pertinent to note that this is the second time in two years that the WHO declared the virus as a “global public health emergency”. At least 450 people died during the initial outbreak of the new variant in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The disease has since spread to areas of central and east Africa.

Mpox spreads by physical contact and causes a characteristic lumpy rash, fever, aches, and pains. Medical professionals have always raised concerns over the matter since the virus can be extremely fatal.

Clade 1b appeared in DRC in September last year and is touted as the “most dangerous variant yet”. It has a higher mortality rate than clade 1b - said to be between 5-10 per cent compared to 0.2 per cent and has already accounted for 15,000 cases in Africa this year.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the symptoms usually appear 6-13 days after infection and include fevers and headaches, rashes or sores and muscle aches.