The strain of MPOX detected in a patient in Pakistan last week is not the same as the virus currently raging in Africa, the country’s health authorities said Monday.
The strain of MPOX detected in a patient in Pakistan last week is not the same as the virus currently raging in Africa, the country’s health authorities said Monday. Pakistan had announced last Friday that it had diagnosed a case of MPOX, in a 34-year-old patient “coming from a Gulf country”. A genetic sequencing of the strain has just been carried out.
“The virus belongs to the clade 2b subtype”the Pakistani Ministry of Health announced in a statement. “Currently the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is primarily associated with Clade 1b. It is noteworthy that to date, no cases of Clade 1b have been reported in Pakistan.”the ministry continues.
Monkeypox, a virus discovered in 1958
Last Thursday, Sweden announced that it had recorded a case of subtype clade 1b, the same new strain of mpox that has appeared in the DRC since September 2023, and the first case outside Africa. The resurgence of mpox in the DRC, which also affects Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, has prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a public health emergency of international concern, the highest alarm. The DRC has recorded at least 16,000 cases, including 548 deaths.
Formerly known as monkeypox, the virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmark, in monkeys bred for research. Then in 1970 for the first time in humans in what is now the DRC. MPOX is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans but is also transmitted through close physical contact. The disease causes fever, muscle pain and skin lesions.
