WHO Declares Monkeypox As Global Public Health Emergency
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Saturday declared the international Monekypox outbreak as “public health emergency of international concern”.
Monkeypox has been detected in more than 70 countries in the current outbreak, which the WHO called an “extraordinary” situation. The WHO’s declaration could spur further investment in treating the once-rare disease and worsen the scramble for vaccines that are already scarce.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the declaration despite a lack of consensus among members of WHO’s Emergency Committee. It was the first time the WHO chief has taken such an action.
Tedros said, “In short, we have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission about which we understand too little and which meets the criteria in the international health regulations. I know this has not been an easy or straightforward process and that there are divergent views among the members.”
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Although Monkeypox has been established in parts of central and west Africa for decades, it 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.
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Declaring a global emergency means the Monkeypox outbreak is an “extraordinary event” that could spill over into more countries and requires a coordinated global response.
WHO previously declared emergencies for public health crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, the Zika virus in Latin America in 2016 and the ongoing effort to eradicate polio.
The emergency declaration mostly serves as a plea to draw more global resources and attention to an outbreak. Past announcements had mixed impact, given that WHO is largely powerless in getting countries to act.
WHO’s top monkeypox expert, Dr. Rosamund Lewis, said this week that 99 per cent of all the Monkeypox cases beyond Africa were in men and that of those, 98 per cent involved men who have sex with men. Experts suspect the Monkeypox outbreaks in Europe and North America were spread via sex at two raves in Belgium and Spain.
