PESHAWAR: Pakistan has detected the first positive patient with the monkeypox virus, Director General Health and Services of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr Salim Khan confirmed to The News on Friday. The KP government has established an isolation facility for suspected Mpox cases in the Police Services Hospital in Peshawar. There were, however, conflicting reports about the number of patients diagnosed with the monkeypox virus.
DG Health and Services Dr Khan had earlier told The News that two patients had been diagnosed with the Mpox virus and they had a travel history of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He stated that samples of the third patient had been sent to the National Institute of Health laboratory in Islamabad for confirmation. “I can confirm to you two positive cases of monkeypox while samples of the third patient have been sent to the NIH laboratory in Islamabad and results are awaited.
All these three patients returned from UAE and are quarantined,” said Dr Salim Khan, DG Health and Services Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Later, the Health Department announced that the third patient had also been confirmed positive for the Mpox virus at the NIH. However, Dr Irshad Roghani, Director of public Health, later issued a statement saying that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had reported only a single patient of Mpox, saying it was the first case of 2024, both in Pakistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He said the two other positive cases were reported in 2023. The officials of the KP Health Department had.