The Philippines has detected a new case of the mpox virus in the country, the first since December last year, its health department said on Monday, adding it was awaiting test results before being able to determine the strain.
According to the Department of Health (DOH), the patient was a 33-year-old Filipino man who had never traveled outside of the country.
About the strain, its spokesman Albert Domingo responded, “We are awaiting sequencing results and will update once available.”
Following an epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that had spread to neighboring nations, the World Health Organization on Wednesday deemed mpox a worldwide public health emergency, the highest level of alert.
Due to its apparent ease of transmission through frequent close contact, a novel strain of the virus has raised concerns across the globe.
The first indication that the new form is spreading outside of Africa was provided on Thursday when a case was identified in Sweden and connected to an expanding outbreak in the continent.
Although they did not yet know the virus’s strain, Pakistan stated on Friday that they had confirmed at least one case of the mpox virus in a patient who had returned from a Gulf nation.
The new case in the Philippines is the 10th laboratory-confirmed case the health department has detected. Its first case was in July 2022.
The disease, caused by the monkeypox virus, leads to flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. It is usually mild but can kill, with children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, all at higher risk of complications.
