MUMBAI/BENGALURU - India reported its first confirmed case of monkeypox on Thursday, the head of the national virology institute, which tested the sample, told Reuters.

"It's a man who traveled from the Middle-East. The rest of the information is with the state health authorities," Priya Abraham, who heads the National Institute of Virology, a government-run lab that tests disease samples, told Reuters.

The man was stable and all his vital signs were normal, the health minister of the southern Kerala state, where the patient is located, told Reuters partner ANI.

Monkeypox, endemic in parts of Africa, is a viral disease that causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesions.

(Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai; Editing by Anil D'Silva)