The World Health Organization says the spread of the smallpox outbreak in more than 70 countries is an “extraordinary” situation that is now being classified as a global emergency.
Key points:
- Declaring a global emergency means that the outbreak requires a coordinated global response
- The WHO has previously declared public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic to be emergencies
- Since May, more than 16,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 74 countries
It’s a statement that could spur more investment in treatment for the once-rare disease and worsen the scramble for scarce vaccines.
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 epidemics in Europe, North America and elsewhere.
Declaring a global emergency means that the monkeypox outbreak is an “extraordinary event” that could spread to more countries and requires a coordinated global response.
WHO previously declared emergencies for public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, and the Zika virus in Latin America in 2016.
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The emergency declaration serves primarily as a plea to attract more global resources and attention to an outbreak.
Earlier announcements had a different impact, given that the UN health agency is largely powerless to get countries to act.
Last month, the WHO expert committee said the global smallpox outbreak was not yet an international emergency, but the group met last week to reassess the situation.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 74 countries since 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.
In Africa, monkeypox spreads mainly to people from infected wild animals such as rodents, in limited outbreaks that have not usually crossed borders.
In Europe, North America and elsewhere, however, monkeypox is spreading among people with no ties to animals or recent travel to Africa.
Dr Rosamund Lewis, the WHO’s leading monkeypox expert, said last week that 99 per cent of all cases of monkeypox beyond Africa were in men and that of these 98 percent involved men who have sex with men.
Experts suspect that outbreaks of monkeypox in Europe and North America were spread through sex in two radishes in Belgium and Spain.
AP
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