Hong Kong has registered its first case of monkeypox in a 30-year-old man who was in hotel quarantine after arriving in the area and was showing symptoms of the disease, health officials said on Tuesday.
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The patient, who arrived in Hong Kong on Monday, was taken to hospital after saying he was unwell, said one of those officials, Edwin Tsui.
He had no contact with the local population and was classified as an imported case, he added, assuring that the risk of seeing Hong Kong residents infected was “very low”.
Travelers arriving in Hong Kong must undergo a three-day quarantine in a hotel as part of the “zero covid” strategy to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
The monkeypox patient was in the United States for most of August before spending a week in Canada and then traveling to the Philippines before arriving in Hong Kong.
According to health officials, in the week leading up to his admission, he presented with symptoms including rashes, swollen lymph nodes and a sore throat.
Hong Kong will raise its monkeypox alert level and report the case to the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as mainland China, officials said.