Health officials 'concerned' after mpox patient gets through screening at Islamabad airport

Health Ministry officials have raised alarm bells over the performance of Border Health Services (BHS) personnel after a monkeypox patient went undetected at the Islamabad airport only to be later found being infected with the infectious disease in Peshawar, sources told Geo News on Thursday.

The sources added the passenger, who reached the Islamabad airport on September 7 from a Gulf country, managed to reach Peshawar due to the negligence of BHS staff stationed at the airport in the federal capital.

The development comes after the country's mpox tally reached six — the fifth since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the recent outbreak of the disease as a public health emergency of international concern — after the said passenger hailing from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Lower Dir area was found carrying the virus.

As per the WHO, mpox is a viral disease related to the now-eradicated smallpox virus and can spread through any close contact and through contaminated materials like sheets, clothing and needles.

Initial symptoms of the disease include fever, chills, muscle pain, swelling of the glands, exhaustion, headache and muscle weakness which are often followed by a painful or itchy rash with raised lesions that scab over and resolve over a period of weeks.

The fact that an mpox patient went undetected is concerning as the government last month issued strict guidelines provisioning screening, isolation and other preventive measures at all international airports across the country in light of the threat posed by the recent global outbreak of the virus.

As part of the government directives, BHS was made the lead agency responsible for the overall coordination and management of mpox-related operations at international airports — manages the isolation and safe transportation of suspected Mpox cases to designated medical facilities.

The authority was also made responsible for reporting confirmed cases to local and national health authorities and maintaining surveillance data.

Furthermore, the guidelines also provisioned thermal scanning at all entry points with BHS personnel required to conduct visual inspections and symptom checks to identify any passengers displaying signs of the disease.

However, the said mpox-infected passenger was neither questioned nor examined by the BHS staff, despite showing visible symptoms, The News reported on Thursday citing officials from the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination (NHS, R&C).

Lamenting the efficacy of the screening being carried out, the technical working group on mpox (TWG) — which was constituted after WHO's declaration and included officials from key public health bodies such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad, the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), and others — has said that surveillance at all other points of entry and airports other than Peshawar is very poor.

Furthermore, the officials have said that the patient stayed at a hotel contacted a skin specialist in Peshawar and was diagnosed with the virus after being tested at the Khyber Medical University.