The World Health Organization (WHO) reconvened the Monkeypox Emergency Committee on Thursday to assess the public health implications of the evolving multi-country outbreak as global cases topped 14,000 , and six countries reported their first cases last week.
The committee met for the first time last month but decided not to declare it a public health emergency of international concern.
The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, acknowledged his “sharp” awareness that any decision on the possible determination involves “the consideration of many factors, with the ultimate goal of protecting public health.”
The committee has already helped “delineate the dynamics of this outbreak,” he said in his opening remarks to committee members and advisers.
“As the outbreak unfolds, it is important to assess the effectiveness of public health interventions in different settings, to better understand what works and what doesn’t.”
“Life-threatening discrimination”
Monkeypox, a rare viral disease, occurs mainly in the rainforest areas of central and western Africa, although it has been exported to other regions.
This year, more than 14,000 cases have been reported in 71 Member States, from the six WHO regions.
While the trend in some countries has decreased, others are increasing. Some, with less access to diagnostics and vaccines, make the outbreak harder to track and contain.
Tedros revealed that six countries reported their first cases last week and that the vast majority continue to be men who have sex with men.
“This pattern of transmission represents both an opportunity to implement targeted public health interventions and a challenge because in some countries, affected communities face life-threatening discrimination,” he said.
He warned of “a very real concern” that men who have sex with men could be “stigmatised or blamed… making the outbreak much harder to track and stop”.
Treatment of monkey pox
One of the most powerful tools against monkeypox is information, the WHO chief said.
“The more information people at risk of monkeypox have, the more they can protect themselves,” Tedros said. “Unfortunately, the information shared with the WHO by West and Central African countries is still very scarce.”
The inability to characterize the epidemiological situation in these regions represents a “substantial challenge” to designing interventions that can control the historically neglected disease.
The UN health agency is working closely with affected communities across its regions and, as the outbreak evolves, has called for greater, “targeted and focused” access to all countermeasures to the most affected populations.
In the meantime, it is validating, procuring and shipping tests to several countries and continues to support expanding access to effective diagnostics.
The committee will discuss the latest evidence and conditions until Thursday and announce its decision in the coming days.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of UN News.
This press release has been issued by APO. The content is not monitored by the African Business editorial team and the content has not been verified or validated by our editorial teams, proofreaders or fact checkers. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this advertisement.