PESHAWAR Kashmir English): The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Health Department has placed all public and private hospitals on high alert for mpox following a alarming rise in confirmed cases across the province.
According to officials reports, more than two dozen, a total of 26, mpox infections have been detected across the province in the last 12 months.
Of these, 18 patients were men and six were women. An advisory issued by the Health authorities emphasised the need for prompt isolation of suspected cases and rigorous testing to curb further spread.
The directive comes in response to an uptick in referrals of suspected patients and an increase in laboratory-confirmed positives through the province’s surveillance and diagnostic systems.
According to official data, cases showed a significant rise in 2025 compared to the previous year, with additional detections continuing into early 2026.
Initially, mpox infections in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were linked to travel from Gulf countries, where individuals tested positive upon arrival and were deported or managed accordingly.
However, recent trends suggest to emerging local transmission within the country.
The first locally acquired case, with no international travel history, was detected in February last year. In 2023, the province recorded only two cases, both imported from the Middle East.
Health authorities have expressed concern over the shifting epidemiological pattern, including the absence of travel history in many recently-diagnose cases and challenges in tracing close contacts in several instances.
The pattern raises fears of potential community transmission and the risk of the zoonotic infection becoming more rooted if containment efforts falter.
Doctors have been instructed to suspect mpox in persons presenting with characteristic symptoms such as specific skin rashes or lesions, fever, body aches, and swollen lymph nodes, especially those with known close contact to confirmed or suspected cases.
Mpox globally
Globally, the decease continues to be reported in various regions, prompting ongoing recommendations from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, for enhanced surveillance, early diagnosis, robust IPC protocols in healthcare settings, and rapid laboratory confirmation to limit transmission.
