International Desk

Pakistan health officials announced on Friday their first case of the deadly mpox virus this year, after the World Health Organization declared an international emergency over its spread.

"The affected person has come from a Gulf country," a Ministry of Health statement said, adding the strain was yet to be confirmed.

Sweden's Public Health Agency said Thursday that it had registered a case of the Clade 1b subclade, the first to be diagnosed out of Africa.

The WHO this week declared the rapid spread of the new Clade 1b strain in Africa a public health emergency of international concern -- the highest alarm it can sound.

The Pakistan patient is a 34-year-old man and being treated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said Irshad Roghani, director of public health there.

"This infection... is the first confirmed case we have this year," he said. "For genetic sequencing of the strain, we have sent samples to Islamabad."

The WHO has recorded more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths so far this year in DR Congo, already exceeding last year's total.

Formerly called monkeypox, the virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmark, in monkeys kept for research. It was first discovered in humans in 1970 in what is now DR Congo.

The infectious disease is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by animals but can also spread human-to-human through close physical contact.

It causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.

Mpox infections surged worldwide in May 2022, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men, due to the Clade 2b subclade.

The WHO declared a public health emergency which lasted from July 2022 to May 2023. It has now largely subsided after causing some 140 deaths out of around 90,000 cases.

But the Clade 1b subclade causes more severe disease than Clade 2b, with a higher fatality rate.