Before succumbing to the skin rash described as ‘distinct,‘ the male patient, 33 years old, from Manila, had a fever.
A new mpox virus was reported in the Philippines, the first case to be identified in the country since December.
Officials added on Monday that the man from the Philippine capital, Manila, is a 33-year-old Filipino, and he does not have travel history beyond his country.
The most recent case was identified after increased scrutiny by the government after a report about a new outbreak in Africa by the WHO.
‘The mpox virus is among us,’ said Herbosa, with nine other cases identified in 2023.
The case was reported to the health agency on Sunday.
This explained Herbosa on Friday: “He did not travel [abroad]. That means the virus is already here in the Philippines,” Herbosa said and continued by saying that no border control measures will be implemented like those done during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government is yet to get the sequencing of the results of the test to ascertain which strain of the virus is circulating in the country.
The new form of the virus has raised concern in all parts of the globe because it seems to spread from the normal routine of close physical contact.
On Wednesday, WHO labeled mpox as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, its highest level of alert after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had affected other countries.
On Thursday this week, for the first time, Sweden detected mpox clade I, for which people can become infected through close contact, and it is a more lethal strain of the known mpox. This is the first instance of the variant being detected in a country other than Africa; more samples are likely to test positive in the area in the following days.
