MIAMI, United States. – The World Health Organization (WHO) declared this Saturday a “global health emergency” due to the outbreaks of monkeypox or monkeypox reported in more than 70 countries around the world.
“We have an outbreak that has spread rapidly around the world through new modes of transmission about which we know very little and that meets the criteria of international health standards,” WHO director Tedros Adhanom said on Saturday. Ghebreyesus.
With this statement, the WHO describes the monkeypox outbreaks reported in more than 70 countries as an “extraordinary event” that could spread to other nations and calls for a coordinated global response to deal with the disease.
Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a “health emergency” after the second meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on the monkeypox outbreak in several countries, held this Thursday, July 21, 2022.
In accordance with the WHO statementCommittee members did not reach consensus on the determination of a “public health emergency of international concern” in relation to the monkeypox outbreak.
However, the WHO Director General recognized the complexities and uncertainties associated with this Public Health event and determined that the monkeypox outbreak in several countries constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
Since the beginning of May 2022, cases of monkeypox have been reported in countries where the disease is not endemic and continue to be reported in several endemic countries, the WHO has reported.
Most of the confirmed cases with a travel history reported travel to countries in Europe and North America, rather than West or Central Africa, where the monkeypox virus is endemic.
This is the first time that many cases and clusters of monkeypox have been reported simultaneously in endemic and non-endemic countries in widely disparate geographic areas.
Most of the cases reported so far have been identified through sexual health or other health services in primary or secondary health care settings and have primarily, but not exclusively, involved men who have sex with men.
There are currently more than 16,000 cases of monkeypox worldwide. While the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries have bought millions of vaccines, none have gone to Africa, where a more serious version of monkeypox has already killed more than 70 people. Rich countries have yet to report any deaths from monkeypox, according to a report from Telemundo of this Saturday.
To date, the WHO has only declared health emergencies for the COVID-19 pandemicthe Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and the Zika virus in Latin America in 2016. It also considers polio in the same category.
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