Last month, the WHO expert panel said the global smallpox outbreak was not yet an international emergency, but the panel met this week to reassess the situation.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 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.
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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 smallpox expert, said this week that 99 per cent of all smallpox cases beyond Africa were in men and that of those, 98 per cent 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.
“While I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern for now, this is an outbreak that is concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners,” Tedros said. “This means that this is an outbreak that can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups.”
Before Saturday’s announcement, Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, said it was surprising that the WHO had not declared monkeypox a global emergency, explaining that the conditions they met weeks ago.
In the United States, some experts have speculated whether monkeypox could be on the verge of becoming a sexually transmitted disease as entrenched in the country as gonorrhea, herpes and HIV.
AP