PESHAWAR: With the detection of a fresh case of Mpox, the tally of the ailment in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reached 19 this year so far amid reports by doctors that the last five patients, diagnosed last week, are locally infected and have no travel history.
Last week, health department recorded four Mpox cases in one day with all of them having no history of foreign travel. The patients included a couple. The latest patient has been recorded in Chitral and he also has never gone abroad.
“He might have contracted the disease from a local patient. It is one of the sexually-transmitted infections and the number of infected persons can be higher if we carry out screening,” a senior dermatologist told this scribe.
He said that the prevalence of virus at community level could be dangerous as patients were unwilling to be seen by doctors and tested positive for sex-borne disease because of the social stigma.
Experts fear increase in number of patients
A health department’s report said that of the latest diagnosed patients, three were admitted and two were in home isolation.
In March this year, health department advised all public and private hospitals to remain vigilant for Mpox to ensure timely isolation and testing of suspected patients. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had registered more than 24 Mpox cases in 2026 and 2025.
The advisory, issued by health department, said that the zoonotic infection was initially attributed to Gulf countries from where people were deported after testing positive for the disease. In the past, many patients were isolated when they appeared suspicious at the airport and tested at the public health reference laboratory, subsequently, it added.
However, the latest trend showed that there were also local infections, suspected to be transported from Punjab or Karachi where the disease was prevalent, dermatologists said.
They said that Punjab initially remained free of Mpox but suddenly announced having more than 25 cases late last year which might have been the cause of surge in cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to them, Mpox continues to be reported internationally. Public health agencies including World Health Organisation (WHO) and United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) recommend sustained surveillance, early recognition, appropriate infection prevention and control (IPC) in healthcare settings and prompt laboratory confirmation to limit spread of the disease.
Health officials said that they had already circulated advisory to all hospitals wherein information for case definition, sampling procedure, contact management, and outbreak response measures were outlined.
The consolidated guidelines of National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, stated that early detection and rapid referral remained the most effective steps to protect patients, healthcare workers and wider community from the disease. The pattern of cases showed an increase in 2025 compared to 2024, with continued positives in early 2026.
“There is need for stronger surveillance and early containment,” said officials.
Two Mpox cases had been detected in 2023 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that originated from Middle East. The first patient, who had no history of travel to foreign country and was locally-infected case, was diagnosed in February 2025.
Officials said that the recently-detected patients had no record of going abroad.
They got the ailment possibly due to local transmission, they said. They said that the change in epidemiological pattern observed over time was a source of concern. The possible community transmission had raised concern that Mpox might become endemic if timely measures were not strengthened, they added.
Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2026
