On Sunday, health officials said they were examining two suspected cases of monkeypox in Lahore, possibly adding the Punjab region to the list of areas reporting recent illnesses with the dangerous virus.
Both suspected patients have developed monkeypox symptoms and are being isolated and treated in Lahore. One of the patients also had a rash and swollen blisters.
The suspected patients will have a PCR test to confirm the virus, and close contacts of both patients will be tracked down to prevent the infection from spreading.
The current outbreak has sparked concern in the South Asian nation, prompting officials to increase surveillance efforts, as the recent diagnosis indicates that the monkeypox virus has been spreading unnoticed.
Authorities are keeping a careful eye on the situation, and isolation units have been set up at numerous government hospitals.
The virus that causes monkeypox is a member of the ‘Poxvirus’ family of viruses, which includes 83 virus species in total and is further classified into two subfamilies with 22 species each.
Because the symptoms of smallpox and monkeypox are so similar, one of the viruses in the aforementioned family is referred to as its cousin.
Although the World Health Organisation now refers to the disease as “Mpox,” it is still commonly referred to as “monkeypox.”
A smallpox-like illness spread among study groups of monkeys in 1958, leading to the discovery of monkeypox.
Also read: What is monkeypox and how dangerous it is for Pakistan?
The monkeypox virus is divided into two types: Central African and West African. The Central African monkeypox virus causes more severe diseases and deaths than the West African monkeypox virus.
The earliest signs of monkeypox are often flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle aches, and tiredness that last a day or two.
The rash appears one to three days after the fever and develops into little regions of red skin all over the body after a few days.
After a while, they could turn into blisters that eventually filled with a yellowish fluid. Monkeypox is not regarded as harmful due to the rash’s resemblance to chicken pox and the fact that it usually fades away on its own after a few weeks. However, it can be severe at times, and deaths in West Africa have been reported.
