The WHO on Saturday declared the monkeypox outbreak, which has affected nearly 17,000 people in 74 countries, to be a global health emergency, the highest alarm it can sound.
“I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference.
A committee of experts met on Thursday, but was unable to reach a consensus, so it fell to him to decide whether to trigger the highest alert, he said.
Photo: AP
“WHO’s assessment is that the risk of monkeypox is moderate globally and in all regions, except in the European region where we assess the risk as high,” he added.
Monkeypox has affected more than 16,800 people in 74 countries, a tally by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed on Friday.
The move paves the way for stepped-up global cooperation to stop the virus, which has spread to dozens of countries. The last time the WHO made a similar declaration was during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020.
Washington welcomed the WHO’s declaration as “a call to action for the world community to stop the spread of this virus.”
“A coordinated, international response is essential to stop the spread of monkeypox, protect communities at greatest risk of contracting the disease and combat the current outbreak,” said Raj Panjabi, senior director for the White House’s global health security and biodefense division.
US health officials said on Friday they have been weighing a similar declaration, which would ultimately come from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
“We’re looking at that, looking at what are the ways in which the response could be enhanced by declaring a public health emergency,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said.
A surge in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside western and central African countries, where the disease has long been endemic.
Ninety-five percent of cases have been transmitted through sexual activity, according to a study of 528 people in 16 countries published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the largest research to date.
Tedros on Saturday said the outbreak was “concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners” which meant it “can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups.”
Tedros has previously expressed concern that stigma and scapegoating could make the outbreak harder to track.
The WHO on June 23 convened an emergency committee of experts to decide if monkeypox constitutes a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern — the UN health agency’s highest alert level. However, a majority advised Tedros that the situation, at that point, had not met the threshold.
The second meeting was called on Thursday with case numbers rising further, where Tedros said he was worried.
“I need your advice in assessing the immediate and mid-term public health implications,” Tedros told the meeting, which lasted more than six hours.
A viral infection resembling smallpox and first detected in humans in 1970, monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980.
The pathogen typically causes flu-like symptoms, followed by a rash that often starts on the face and spreads down the belly. The illness often lasts for two weeks to a month.
However, it is rarely fatal, with immunocompromised people and children under the age of 8 being at most risk of serious illness or death, according to the CDC.
The EU’s drug watchdog on Friday recommended for approval the use of Imvanex, a smallpox vaccine, to treat monkeypox.
Imvanex, developed by Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic, has been approved in the EU since 2013 for the prevention of smallpox. It was also considered a potential vaccine for monkeypox because of the similarity between the monkeypox virus and the smallpox virus.
The first symptoms of monkeypox are fever, headaches, muscle pain and back pain during the course of five days. Rashes subsequently appear on the face, palms of hands and soles of the feet, followed by lesions, spots and finally scabs.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS