Pakistan has confirmed at least one case of the mpox virus, a day after Sweden confirmed an infection with a more easily spread and deadlier variant linked to a recent outbreak in Africa.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Health said in a statement on Friday that the mpox strain that had caused the confirmed case was not immediately known.
Irshad Roghani, director of public health in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the 34-year-old patient is being treated, said samples had been sent to Islamabad for genetic sequencing to ascertain which variant of the virus the patient contracted.
Meanwhile, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on Friday raised its risk level for mpox from “low” to “moderate”, warning there would be more imported cases.
That came a day after Sweden announced it had discovered a more dangerous variant of the virus, named Clade 1, in an infected patient.
“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.
Separately, France also put its public health system on “maximum alert level” amid concerns over the virus.
Clade 1, which spreads more easily through close contact, is linked to a deadly surge of the virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that began in September. The Swedish case marks the first such infection outside the African continent, according to Sweden’s Public Health Agency.
A statement from the agency quoted epidemiologist Magnus Gisslen as saying the patient had been infected during a visit to “the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox Clade 1”.
An earlier outbreak in 2022 was linked to a milder variant, known as Clade 2, endemic in West Africa. It caused about 140 deaths and 90,000 cases, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.
