He was exhibiting symptoms of the disease and his samples have been sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune, Dr Ajit Singh, Superintendent of Rajasthan University of Health Sciences, said today.
The youth was referred from Kishangarh late on Sunday. He has been kept under observation in the special ward created for monkeypox cases, he added.
The youth is suffering from fever for the last four days and has rashes on his body, Dr Singh further said.
Meanwhile, a 35-year-old Nigerian man, living in New Delhi and having no recent history of foreign travel, has tested positive for monkeypox, taking the total number of infected people in the country to six.
The Indian authorities today confirmed Asia's first possible monkeypox fatality after the death of a man who recently returned from United Arab Emirates testing positive.
Kerala state's health ministry said tests on the 22-year-old "showed that the man had monkeypox".
Three monkeypox-related fatalities have so far been reported outside Africa in an outbreak that the World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency.
The Indian man died in Kerala on July 30 around a week after returning from the UAE and being taken to hospital.
It was unclear however whether monkeypox was the cause of death.
"The youth had no symptoms of monkeypox. He had been admitted to a hospital with symptoms of encephalitis and fatigue," the Indian Express daily quoted Kerala's health minister Veena George as saying on Sunday.
Twenty people identified as high risk of infection were being kept under observation, she added, including family members, friends who played football with the man and medical staff.
- 18,000 cases -
According to the WHO, more than 18,000 monkeypox cases have been detected throughout the world outside Africa since the beginning of May, most of them in Europe.
Spain last week recorded two monkeypox-related deaths and Brazil one.
It is however unclear if monkeypox actually caused the three fatalities, with Spanish authorities as of Sunday still carrying out autopsies and Brazilian authorities saying its deceased patient had other "serious conditions".
The WHO's European office said on Saturday that more monkeypox-related deaths can be expected.
"With the continued spread of monkeypox in Europe, we will expect to see more deaths," Catherine Smallwood, Senior Emergency Officer at WHO Europe, said in a statement.
The goal needs to be "interrupting transmission quickly in Europe and stopping this outbreak", she said.
- Rash -
Monkeypox, so called because it was first discovered in a monkey, is related to the deadly smallpox virus, which was eradicated in 1980, but is far less severe.
Early signs of the disease include a high fever, swollen lymph glands and a chickenpox-like rash.
In May 2022, a flurry of cases was detected in countries outside Africa in people with no travel links to the region.
The WHO last month declared the outbreak to be a global health emergency -- the highest alarm it can sound.
With agency inputs
