Mpox reported in Pakistan: How dangerous is it?

At least one patient has been diagnosed with monkeypox in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the provincial health authorities confirmed on Friday.

The first case of the disease this year in Pakistan was reported on Thursday, a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared the ongoing mpox outbreak in Africa a global health emergency — the highest level of alarm under international health law, CNN reported.

Mpox is a viral disease related to the now-eradicated smallpox virus and can spread through any close contact and through contaminated materials like sheets, clothing and needles, according to WHO.

All patients in Pakistan were detected with the virus following their arrival from an Arab country, the department said.

However, it is crucial to understand whether this recent rise in Mpox case is alarmingly dangerous or will it subside with time without major impact.

How dangerous is it and who's at risk?

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that while some outbreaks of clade I mpox have killed up to 10% of people who get sick, more recent outbreaks have had lower death rates.

The fatality rate for clade II is less than 0.2%.

Those at risk of having more severe infections include infants, people with severely weakened immune systems and pregnant women.

According to Dr Daniel Bausch, senior adviser for global health security at FIND, a global nonprofit focused on health equity, believes that surveillance of mpox is quite incomplete and there's much more to learn.

"This is a virus that is in the environment and presumably maintained in small mammals in Africa, and we don’t have the proper diagnostics, really," he said.

"It's not necessarily hard to diagnose mpox infection when you have a laboratory right next to you, and skilled laboratory workers, and the technology. But of course, most of these cases are often seen in very rural areas, so trying to get a sample and get it to a laboratory is a difficult thing."

Our understanding of transmissibility and fatality risk may be skewed by limitations that tend to detect only the most severe cases, he said.

Symptoms of Mpox?

Initial symptoms are typically flu-like that include fever, chills, exhaustion, headache and muscle weakness.

They are often followed by a painful or itchy rash with raised lesions that scab over and resolve over a period of weeks.