Khairpur | Pakistan

KARACHI: Raising concern over the mpox outbreak in Khairpur, experts at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) on Wednesday urged healthcare providers and policymakers to treat the viral disease as an immediate public health concern. Last week, an outbreak of mpox was reported from Khairpur when the Sindh health department said lab results confirmed that seven newborn babies had the zoonotic viral infection and four of them died. In response to the situation, the AKUH held a media roundtable, where the experts said that the active outbreak of mpox in Khairpur and the local transmission suspected in Karachi, indicated that the cases were no longer exclusively coming from abroad. They explained that one of the two cases confirmed in Karachi this year pointed to possible local transmission, while the Khairpur outbreak suggested the virus had entered healthcare settings, exposing critical gaps in infection prevention and control beyond major urban centres. Experts urge authorities to treat the disease as an imme...

Authorities in Khairpur have confirmed that four children died of Monkeypox amid a wider outbreak of skin-related illnesses that has claimed seven young lives in total.

• Health dept confirms four of seven children who died last month in Khairpur hospitals had mpox • Claims deaths not directly linked to zoonotic viral infection • Sukkur commissioner asks DHO to initiate ‘comprehensive contact tracing’ • Babies seemed to have infected from unsterilized hospital equipment: sources • Many ‘chickenpox-like’ cases reported from other districts KARACHI / SUKKUR: An outbreak of mpox, the first local outbreak of the zoonotic viral infection in the country, has claimed the lives of at least four newborns in Khairpur, it emerged on Saturday. The worrisome child health situation involving death of seven newborns in two Khairpur hospitals took an alarming turn when the provincial health department confirmed that “initial findings showed that four of the seven children [who died] were affected by mpox”. Sources said the seven babies affected by mpox were under treatment in intensive care units at public and private hospitals in Khairpur and seemed to have acquired the infection from unst...

KARACHI: At least 11 people were killed and eight were injured after a bus collided with a trailer on the National Highway near Tando Masti in Sindh’s Khairpur district on Sunday, motorway police said. As per a statement issued by National Highways & Motorway Police (NHMP), “11 people have died so far, while another eight remain injured in a collision between a bus and a trailer on the National Highway near Tando Masti”. The bus was heading from Bahawalpur to Karachi. In an earlier statement, the motorway police said the accident occurred due to “negligence and recklessness on the bus driver’s part”. “Rescue teams and motorway police immediately reached the site of the incident,” the statement said, adding that the bodies and injured were rushed to nearby hospitals. The NHMP inspector general (IG) has taken notice of the incident and sought a report on it, the statement said. “The motorway police are continuing to restore traffic and clear the road,” the NHMP said. It added that an emergency control room had ...