Pakistan govt asks national and provincial health authorities to look for suspected Monkeypox cases

Islamabad [Pakistan], May 30 : As the Pakistan Health Ministry confirmed the lack of facilities for diagnostic tests for the Monkeypox virus the federal government on Monday issued a high alert in the country.
Pakistan's health ministry officials are considering declaring a patient "a suspected case" by examining their symptoms due to the lack of testing kits.
Amid the rising risk of the outbreak of the Monkeypox virus, the Pakistan government on Monday instructed the national and provincial health authorities to look for suspected cases.
The federal Health Ministry recently confirmed that the country has no facility for diagnostic tests for the virus. In view of this, the Pakistan government asked the health authorities to report any suspected cases of the virus immediately.
The monkeypox virus is tested through a PCR machine similar to the diagnostic tests for COVID-19, Geo TV reported citing the health experts.
Earlier, the officials of the federal health ministry debunked the news circulated on social media about the finding of the virus in the country and said that there are no cases of monkeypox reported in the country yet, however, in the case of an outbreak, the samples can be sent abroad for testing, Geo TV reported.
"The National Institutes of Health (NIH), Islamabad clarifies that NO case of Monkeypox has yet been diagnosed in Pakistan. The news circulating on social media about monkeypox cases is incorrect. The situation is being closely monitored by the health authorities," NIH wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation also issued a warning recently against the disease and said that countries should take the right measures to contain Monkeypox cases easily and also share data about their vaccine stockpiles.
According to WHO, Monkeypox is usually a self-limited disease and typically lasts 2 to 4 weeks. It may be severe in children, pregnant women or persons with immune suppression due to other conditions. The incubation period is usually 6 to 13 days but it can be longer from 5 to 21 days.
Sylvie Briand, WHO director for Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness said that the extent of the disease is uncertain. On the risk to the community spread, she said, "We are afraid that it will be spread in the community but currently it is very hard to assess this risk."
"There is also much uncertainty about the future and this disease because we don't know if this transmission will stop. What we have seen in endemic countries as usually we have self-limiting outbreaks, and so we hope it will be exactly the same with the current one," she added.
So far, Monkeypox has been reported in more than 20 countries including the USA, UK, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, and Italy among others. This is one of the biggest outbreaks of the virus outside of West Africa.
Typical symptoms include fever headache, muscle ache backache and fatigue and swollen lymph nodes and then it's followed by skin rashes and or lesions.