PESHAWAR: According to a senior official, the health department has reported a case of mpox, formerly known as monkey pox, and has placed hospitals and other pertinent facilities in the province on alert.
The zoonotic virus was discovered in a 34-year-old male citizen of the Lower Dir district on Wednesday, according to Dr. Irshad Ali Roghani, head of public health at the provincial directorate-general health services, who spoke with Dawn. He said that the patient had been segregated and had a history of travel to the Middle East.
According to him, the patient went to Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar for certain skin-related concerns. There, the Public Health Reference Laboratory (PHRL) of Khyber Medical University recommended an mpox test, which came back positive.
According to Dr. Irshad, the specimen has also been forwarded to the National Institute of Health in Islamabad for genetic sequencing. He continued, saying, “The department has strengthened its surveillance network and is working to screen people among the infected person’s close contacts.”
The patient from Dir has visited the Middle East in the past.
He claimed that district health officers and medical superintendents of hospitals had received an advice about the gathering, storing, and shipping of samples to PHRL. He said that hospitals were instructed to follow standard operating procedures in order to guarantee proper diagnosis.
In order to examine suspicious patients, hospitals were also notified about the disease’s symptoms, according to Dr. Irshad.
Hospitals have also received recommendations from PHRL, which states that mpox is spread from animals to people and requires three to seventeen days for incubation following vaccination.
A fever, headache, aches in the muscles, back discomfort, swollen lymph nodes, chills, and weariness are the initial symptoms. Following the onset of symptoms, the patient gets a rash that usually starts on the face and moves to the palms and soles of the body.
After beginning as flat lesions called macules, the rash progresses to elevated lesions called papules, fluid-filled lesions called vesicles, pustules (lesions filled with pus), and lastly crusts. Eventually, the lesions come off.
Direct contact with an infected patient’s blood, body fluids, cutaneous, or mucosal sores, as well as indirect contact through contaminated bedding, can spread the disease.
There is no particular treatment for it. The illness has an end to itself.
The primary goal of the disease’s supportive care is to reduce symptoms. In certain nations, antiviral medications like as Tecovirimat (TPOXX) are authorized for the treatment of it. Nonetheless, most of the time antiviral therapy is not recommended.
When a patient has concomitant conditions like HIV/AIDS or an immunodeficiency state, the infection may become more aggressive.
The World Health Organization advises avoiding close contact with suspected or confirmed cases, washing your hands often, and wearing personal protective equipment when providing patient care in order to stop the spread of mpox.
One important preventive measure is vaccination, especially for high-risk populations. In certain areas, the smallpox vaccination is authorized for the prevention of mpox. The availability of vaccines is restricted worldwide.
The recommendation states that healthcare professionals should adhere to stringent infection control procedures, such as isolating patients and using the proper personal protective equipment. It continues, saying that quick case identification and isolation, contact tracing, and public education are crucial elements of outbreak containment.
It states that while seeking laboratory testing, doctors should include as much clinical information as feasible, including the date the symptoms started, the potential contact history, and sample collection. It also states that the clinical summary needs to be included with the sample and placed in a different plastic zipper bag in the triple package’s second layer.
