KARACHI: The Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) on Sunday directed the authorities concerned to implement precautionary measures against monkeypox at airports after a case of the infectious viral disease was reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Since a new strain of the virus appears to spread more easily through close contact, it has raised concerns throughout the world. The first indication of the new variant’s global spread was a case that was verified in Sweden on August 15 and linked to an expanding outbreak in Africa.

In this regard, the PCAA directed all the airlines arriving from abroad to provide masks to their passengers. “Whereas, it has been made mandatory for staff of the airlines and ground handling service as well to wear masks,” it said.

The authority instructed airlines to ensure sanitising hands of the staff and passengers, while their luggage should also be disinfected.

The passengers having symptoms of monkeypox should be isolated, it ordered.

A health officer in KP’s Mardan district had said the location of the confirmed mpox patient, a man the officer said had recently returned from Saudi Arabia, was unknown.

He had initially received tests and advice at a hospital in Peshawar, Dr Javed Iqbal had told Reuters, but later returned to his home a few hours away in Mardan and then went to another district.

“When we visited his home in Mardan, it was locked from outside and his neighbours told us that the family has left for Dir,” said the DHO Mardan.

“We approached our fellow colleagues of the health department in Dir district, but they couldn’t trace him even in Dir.”

The national health ministry had said it was carrying out contact tracing of the patient it had identified, who they said was from Mardan. They were also boosting airport surveillance and monitoring with extra health personnel, the ministry had stated.

Federal Ministry of Health spokesperson Sajid Shah had said so far they had no confirmation of the new variant, but the sequencing of the sample of the confirmed patient was underway.

“Once that’s done, we will be able to say what strain is this,” Shah had said.