A 40-year-old man, who was under treatment at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Hospital in Islamabad, after contracting monkeypox has died.

According to the health ministry, the deceased patient was suffering from monkeypox and HIV. He had returned to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia.

They added that he was under treatment at the hospital for more than one month. He died on Sunday.

What is monkeypox

The monkeypox virus was discovered in Denmark (1958) in monkeys kept for research and the first reported human case of mpox was a nine-month-old boy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, 1970), according to the World Health Organisation.

A global outbreak of the virus took place in 2022-2023. The disease is characterised by rashes, enlarged lymph nodes and fever although most people make a full recovery. The rashes can turn into blisters or lesions.

Symptoms include:

• Rash
• Fever
• Sore throat
• Headache
• Muscle aches
• Back pain
• Low energy
• Swollen lymph nodes

The disease is contagious and can be passed to others and a person is only declared healed when the rashes or blisters have completely healed and a new layer of skin has formed.