KARACHI: The city reported its first mpox case involving an infant boy on Wednesday evening as the total number of people affected by the disease in Sindh this year rose to 94.
Sources said the 40-day-old baby boy was currently under treatment at the Sindh Infectious Diseases Hospital & Research Centre (SIDH&RC). The parents are residents of Landhi.
Speaking to Dawn on condition of anonymity, a senior SIDH&RC doctor said that the baby boy had initially been examined at a clinic in Landhi four to five days ago, after which he developed fever and rashes all over the body.
“The parents took him to a Korangi hospital, from where he was referred to us. He is stable but restless,” he said, adding that 23 mpox patients, including the latest case, had reported at the hospital this year so far.
The sources said that two mpox patients, one with severe lung illness and the other with chronic kidney disease, had died at the hospital over the past few weeks. In hospital records, however, their causes of death were attributed to their chronic illnesses rather than mpox.
Early this month, the Provincial Disease Surveillance and Response Unit released data showing 11 deaths from mpox this year. It showed that Karachi is the most mpox-affected city with 28 cases, followed by 22 in Khairpur and nine in Sukkur.
The monthly trend showed that April saw the largest number of cases (31) this year, followed by September (20) and August (17).
Seventy cases involved male patients, and the most affected age group was 30 to 39 years. Twenty-three cases involved children aged zero to nine years across the province, and 18 cases involved adults aged 20-29.
Seventy-five per cent of patients were men and 24pc women.
In April, an outbreak of mpox, which was earlier restricted to patients with a history of foreign travel, was reported from Khairpur, claiming the lives of several newborns. The babies were under treatment in the intensive care units of two hospitals.
Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2026.
