The health department in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province said on Friday that one mpox case had been confirmed in the area, withdrawing a previous statement that three mpox patients had been detected there this week on arrival from the United Arab Emirates.
A health officer in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Mardan district said the location of the confirmed mpox patient, a man the officer said had recently returned from Saudi Arabia, was unknown. He had initially received tests and advice at a hospital in the provincial capital Peshawar, Dr Javed Iqbal told Reuters, but later returned to his home a few hours away in Mardan and then went to another district.
“When we visited his home in Mardan, it was locked from outside and his neighbours told us that the family has left for Dir,” said the DHO Mardan. “We approached our fellow colleagues of the health department in Dir district, but they couldn’t trace him even in Dir.” The national health ministry said it was carrying out contact tracing of the patient it had identified, who they said was from Mardan. They were also boosting airport surveillance and monitoring with extra health personnel, the ministry said in a statement.
