Almost 17,000 people in 74 countries are already affected by the disease.
The World Health Organization issued its highest alert on Saturday, July 23, to contain the monkeypox outbreak that has affected nearly 17,000 people in 74 countries, its director-general announced.
“I have decided to declare an international health emergency of international concern,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference, adding that the risk is relatively low globally, apart from Europe, where it is high.
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dr Tedros explained that the expert committee had not reached consensus and remained divided on the need to trigger the highest alert. In the end, the managing director decides. “It’s a call to action, but not the first,” said Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergency manager, who hopes it will lead to collective action against disease.
The rapidly increasing number of cases
Since early May, when it was detected outside African countries where it is endemic, the disease has affected more than 16,836 people in 74 countries as of July 22, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dashboard infested. Monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted disease, but outside of endemic areas it affects men who have sex with men, with rare exceptions. If the health authorities report a decline in the infection rate, the number of cases increases rapidly.
The Public Health Emergency of International Concern (USPPI) qualification is used in “serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected” situations. It is defined by the WHO as an “extraordinary event” the spread of which poses a “risk to public health in other countries” and may require “coordinated international action”.
This is only the seventh time WHO has used this alert level. At an initial meeting on June 23, the majority of the Emergency Committee’s experts recommended Doctor Tedros not to state the urgency of USPPI.
risk of stigma
The unusual increase in monkeypox, detected in early May outside of central and west African countries where the virus is endemic, has since spread around the world, with Europe as the epicenter. First discovered in humans in 1970, monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than its cousin, human smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980.
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In most cases, the patients are men who have sex with men, are relatively young and, according to the WHO, live mainly in cities. A study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the largest on the subject, based on data from 16 different countries, confirms that the disease was transmitted through sexual contact in the vast majority — 95% — of recent cases and 98 % of those affected were gay or bisexual men.
“This transmission route represents both an opportunity to implement targeted public health interventions and a challenge, because in some countries affected communities face life-threatening discrimination,” medical doctor Tedros told the expert panel on Thursday. “There is a real concern that men who have sex with men could be stigmatized in cases or blamed for the rise, making them much more difficult to track down and stop,” he warned.
An approved vaccine
On Friday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that it has approved the use of a human smallpox vaccine to expand its use against the spread of monkeypox. In fact, this vaccine is already being used for this purpose in several countries, including France. The Imvanex vaccine from the Danish company Bavarian Nordic has been approved in the EU for the prevention of smallpox since 2013.
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The WHO recommends vaccinating those most at risk, as well as health workers likely to face the disease. Thousands of people have already been vaccinated with the Jynneos vaccine in New York.
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