BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s health commissioner is urging the bloc’s governments to step up their efforts to deal with the spreading monkeypox outbreak in the region, which she says is “the epicenter of cases detected”.
In a letter to the EU’s 27 health ministers obtained by The Associated Press, EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides called for “reinforced, concerted and coordinated action” on Wednesday.
“There is no time for complacency and we must continue to work together to control the outbreak,” he wrote.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a global emergency. It is the WHO’s highest alert level, but the designation does not necessarily mean that a disease is particularly communicable or lethal. Similar statements were made in 2016 for the Zika virus in Latin America and the ongoing effort to eradicate polio, in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Kyriakides said the bloc’s priorities at this stage must include stepping up case identification and reporting and preventing the spread of infection.
The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, has secured the purchase of 160,000 doses of vaccines for the disease and Kyriakides said two joint procurement procedures are being prepared to buy more shots and the drug antiviral Tecovirimat.
Although monkeypox has been established in parts of central and western Africa for decades, it was not known to trigger large outbreaks beyond the continent or spread widely among people until May, when authorities they detected dozens of outbreaks in Europe, North America and elsewhere.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 74 countries since about May. So far, deaths from monkeypox have only been reported in Africa, where a more dangerous version of the virus is spreading, mainly in Nigeria and the Congo.
Dr Rosamund Lewis, the WHO’s leading expert on monkeypox, said that 99% of all cases of monkeypox beyond Africa were in men and that of these, 98% involved men who have sex with men.
While Kyriakides encouraged EU ministers to step up their public risk communication with at-risk groups, he said the particular group of men who have sex with men “should not be targeted, victimized or marginalized in cause of the outbreak”.
Samuel Petrequin, The Associated Press