WHO declares the monkeypox outbreak in more than 70 countries a “public health emergency of international concern”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the monkeypox outbreak in more than 70 countries an “emergency of international concern”.
The WHO label – a “public health emergency of international concern” – is designed to sound the alarm that a coordinated international response is needed and could unlock funding and global efforts to collaborate on sharing vaccines and treatments
Governments are advised to sensitize doctors and hospitals, take protective measures in suspected cases and educate members of the public on how to protect themselves from infection.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the decision to issue the statement despite a lack of consensus among experts on the UN health agency’s emergency committee. It was the first time the head of the United Nations health agency had taken such action.
Announcing his decision to declare the health emergency during a media conference in Geneva, Tedros confirmed that the committee had not reached a consensus, with nine members against and six in favor of the declaration.
“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission about which we understand too little and that meets the criteria of international health regulations,” Tedros said on Saturday.
“I know that this has not been an easy or direct process and that there are divergent opinions among the members” of the commission, he added.
Tedros said there are now more than 16,000 reported cases from 75 countries and territories and five deaths.
A global emergency is the WHO’s highest alert level, but the designation does not necessarily mean that a disease is particularly communicable or lethal.
WHO’s head of emergencies, Dr Michael Ryan, said the director-general took the decision to put monkeypox in this category to ensure the global community took the current outbreak seriously.
Monkeypox has been established in parts of central and western Africa for decades, but 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.
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 Democratic Republic of Congo.
In Africa, monkeypox is mainly spread to people by 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.
Lawrence Gostin, director of WHO’s Center for Global Health Law, told Al Jazeera that there has been “an exponential increase in cases of monkeypox in five WHO regions of the world”.
“There should be contact tracing … widespread testing and strategic deployment of vaccines to try to cut it in the bud. But the window for monkeypox containment is closing fast and we fear this could become endemic in Europe, North America and other parts of the world in the coming months,” Gostin told Al Jazeera.