Smallpox is not yet a global health emergency, the World Health Organization has ruled, although Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says he is deeply concerned about the outbreak.
According to the WHO, there have been more than 3,200 confirmed cases of smallpox and one death in the last six weeks in 48 countries where it does not usually spread.
So far this year, there have also been almost 1,500 cases and 70 deaths in Central Africa, where the disease is most common, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“I am deeply concerned about the monkeypox outbreak, this is clearly an evolving health threat that my colleagues and I in the WHO secretariat are following very closely,” Tedros said on Saturday.
The WHO also said that although there were differing views within the committee, it finally agreed that at this stage the outbreak was not a public health emergency of international interest.
The “global emergency” label applies only to the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing efforts to eradicate polio, and the United Nations agency has stopped applying it to the monkeypox outbreak afterwards. of the council of a meeting of international experts.
Smallpox, a viral disease that causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesions, has spread widely in men who have sex with men outside the countries where it is endemic.
Vaccines and treatments are available for monkeypox, although they are limited.
Some global health experts said the WHO may have been hesitant to make a statement because its January 2020 statement that the new coronavirus represented a public health emergency was received with great skepticism.
Gregg Gonsalves, an associate professor of epidemiology at Yale University who advised the committee, told Reuters the decision was “wrong.”
“It met all the criteria, but they decided to go for this momentous decision,” he said.