Brutally assaulted by Bajrang Dal activists, 19-yr-old Muslim boy dies in Mangaluru hospital

New Delhi: A man who recently travelled from a country experiencing mpox transmission has tested positive for the disease, the Union Health Ministry said on Monday.

"The previously suspected case of mpox has been verified as a travel-related infection. Laboratory testing has confirmed the presence of mpox virus of the West African clade-2 in the patient," it said.

The ministry said that it is an isolated case, similar to the earlier 30 cases reported in India from July 2022 onwards. It is not a part of the current public health emergency reported by WHO which is regarding clade 1 of mpox, it underlined.

"The individual, a young male who recently travelled from a country experiencing ongoing mpox transmission, is currently isolated at a designated tertiary care isolation facility. The patient remains clinically stable and is without any systemic illness or comorbidities," the ministry said.

The case aligns with earlier risk assessments and continues to be managed according to established protocols, it said, adding that public health measures, including contact tracing and monitoring, are actively in place to ensure the situation is contained.

"There is no indication of any widespread risk to the public at this time," the health ministry stated.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) last month declared mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) for the second time in view of its prevalence and spread across many parts of Africa.

The United Nations has warned that Israel is using “lethal war-like tactics” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, more than a week after the occupying entity launched a massive military aggression in the Palestinian territory, killing dozens of people.

At a press conference in New York on Tuesday, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Stéphane Dujarric, said that the Tel Aviv regime had resumed its aggression in Tulkarm and Jenin.

“The UN has recorded more than two dozen fatalities over the past week, including children,” he said, adding that multiple organizations mobilized by the OCHA were set to carry out an assessment in Jenin but were denied access by the Israeli authorities. 

“OCHA warns that access impediments are impacting the ability to provide meaningful humanitarian response,” Dujarric said, noting that the movement of ambulances and medical teams has been impeded and delayed since the onset of the current aggression.

In the early hours of August 28, the Israeli military conducted its biggest operation – dubbed “Camps of Summer” – in the West Bank in over 20 years, deploying hundreds of troops and airstrikes on Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas, which are major centers of Palestinian resistance against the occupying entity.

The ongoing military aggression in the West Bank is currently concentrated in the city of Jenin, whose streets and infrastructure have been damaged by over 70 percent since the onset of the “Camps of Summer”, according to its municipality.

Dujarric also warned that Israeli forces continue to employ “lethal war-like tactics” in the West Bank, including airstrikes, with people being killed, injured and displaced.

While in Tulkarem on Saturday, OCHA teams verified that 120 Palestinians, including over 40 children, were displaced due to the destruction of their homes.

“At the time of the assessment, 13,000 people in Nour Shams refugee camp experienced water cut-offs, attributed to damages caused to the water network, and sewage overflow was observed. The teams also noted that the population was traumatized and in need of psychosocial support,” the OCHA report said.

Since the onset of the current aggression in the West Bank, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces has increased to 34. This includes 19 in Jenin, 8 in Tulkarm, 4 in Tubas, and 3 in al-Khalil. The total death toll in the occupied West Bank has now reached 685 since October 7 last year.

The heightened tensions in the occupied West Bank come as the Israeli regime has since October been conducting a barbaric onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, claiming the lives of more than 40,000 people, most of them women and children. 

Israel's foreign minister says Palestinians will be ordered to evacuate parts of the northern occupied West Bank, amid unprecedented bloody raids in the area as similar measures have been taken by the regime’s military in the Gaza Strip, which is subjected to a genocidal war since October.

In a post on social media platform X on Wednesday, Israel Katz said the Israeli military is working “intensively” to thwart what he alleged to be “terrorist infrastructures” in the Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps, claiming that “an eastern terrorist front” is being established against Israel in the West Bank.

Katz noted that the raids see "temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents" in areas in the northern West Bank in measures akin to those imposed in Gaza.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli army launched raids in the cities of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas in the northern West Bank, killing at least 11 Palestinians.

Since the start of Israel’s aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip in October, the West Bank has also seen a rise in violence from Israeli forces and settlers that has claimed the lives of hundreds of Palestinians.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 662 Palestinians were killed and about 5,400 others injured by Israeli fire since October 7, considering the new deaths.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least  40,534 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 93,778 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

In a landmark ruling, the United Nations’ top court said last month Israel’s presence in the 1967- occupied Palestinian territories is “unlawful” and must end.

In a 1967 war, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East al-Quds, which it subsequently annexed.

The 83-page advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice also outlined a wide list of policies that it said violated international law, including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east al-Quds.