ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has detected its first case of monkeypox, an infectious disease, the Ministry of National Health Services Regulations and Coordination confirmed on Tuesday.
An official of the ministry told media that the infection was detected in a person deported from Saudi Arabia and arrived in Pakistan on April 17.
Samples of the person were subsequently forwarded to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, where the facility had confirmed that he was a carrier of the contagious virus a day earlier.
The person is a resident of either Rawalpindi or Islamabad, according to the officials, and his family are currently being investigated. The family has been asked to remain in quarantine in order to prevent the virus from spreading.
The official said that following the discovery of the virus, high alert has been placed at all airports across the country. He said that the ministry had sent more samples to the NIH for investigation.
Monkeypox is a viral disease brought on by the monkeypox virus, a kind of the orthopoxvirus genus. There are two distinct clades: clade I and clade II.
