Officials in New York on Saturday declared a public health emergency due to the spread of the monkeypox virus, calling the city “the epicenter” of the outbreak.
The announcement by New York Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Department of Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan said that as many as 150,000 city residents could be at risk of infection. The declaration would allow officials to issue emergency orders under the city health code and amend code provisions to implement measures to help slow the spread.
In the past two days, New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state disaster emergency declaration and the New York State Department of Health called monkeypox an “imminent threat to public health.”
Photo: AFP
New York had recorded 1,345 cases as of Friday, data compiled by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed. California had the second-most, with 799.
“We will continue to work with our federal partners to secure more [vaccine] doses as soon as they become available,” Adams and Vasan said in the statement. “This outbreak must be met with urgency, action and resources, both nationally and globally, and this declaration of a public health emergency reflects the seriousness of the moment.”
The WHO declared monkeypox a global health emergency on Saturday last week and San Francisco’s mayor on Thursday announced a state of emergency over the growing number of cases.
The once-rare disease has been established in parts of central and west Africa for decades, but was not known to spark large outbreaks beyond the continent or to spread widely among people until May, when authorities detected dozens of epidemics in Europe, North America and elsewhere.
To date, there have been more than 22,000 monkeypox cases reported in nearly 80 countries, with about 75 suspected deaths in Africa, mostly in Nigeria and Congo.
On Friday, Brazil and Spain reported deaths linked to monkeypox, the first reported outside Africa. Spain reported a second monkeypox death on Saturday.
The Spanish Ministry of Health said that both fatalities were young men.
On Friday, the ministry reported that 4,298 people were infected with the virus, making it the leading European country for monkeypox cases. Of that total, 3,500 cases were of men who had had sex with other men. Only 64 were women.
The ministry said that 120 have needed hospital attention.
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