The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said this Sunday (4) that he is considering convening the entity’s emergency committee to assess the mpox outbreak scenario in Africa. 
“As a more deadly variant of the virus spreads across several African countries, WHO, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, local governments and partners are stepping up their responses to stop transmission of the disease,” Tedros Adhanom wrote on his X social media profile.
“I am considering convening the Health Regulations Emergency Committee to advise me on whether the mpox outbreak should be declared a public health emergency of international concern,” Tedros added.
Understand
In late June, the WHO warned of a more dangerous variant of mpox, a disease previously known as monkeypox. According to the organization, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been facing an outbreak of the disease since 2022 and the intense transmission of the virus between humans has led to a previously unknown mutation.
Data from the organization indicate that the fatality rate for the new 1b variant in Central Africa is more than 10% among young children, while the 2b variant, which caused the global mpox epidemic in 2022, recorded a fatality rate of less than 1%. In June, the organization recorded more than 95,000 confirmed cases of the disease in 117 countries, in addition to more than 200 deaths.
“This is a staggering number when you consider that only a few thousand cases of monkeypox had been reported worldwide before, and now we are approaching 100,000 cases,” said Rosamund Lewis, technical lead on monkeypox for the WHO Global Emergencies Programme.
According to the expert, a specific outbreak, registered since September 2023 in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in the province of South Kivu, is caused by a strain of mpox with previously undocumented mutations. “These mutations suggest that the virus has only been transmitted from human to human,” she said.
The disease
MPOX is a viral zoonotic disease. Transmission to humans can occur through contact with infected wild animals, people infected with the virus, and contaminated materials. Symptoms generally include rashes or skin lesions, swollen lymph nodes, fever, body aches, headache, chills, and weakness.
According to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the time between first contact with the virus and the onset of signs and symptoms (incubation period) ranges from 3 to 16 days, but can be as long as 21 days. Once the scabs on the skin disappear, the infected person is no longer able to transmit the virus. The rash usually begins within one to three days after the onset of fever, but may appear earlier.
The lesions may be flat or slightly raised, filled with clear or yellowish fluid, and may form crusts that dry and fall off. The number of lesions on a person can range from a few to thousands. The rashes tend to be concentrated on the face, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet, but can occur anywhere on the body, including the mouth, eyes, genitals, and anus.
Emergency
In May 2023, almost a week after changing the status of COVID-19, the WHO declared that the disease no longer constituted a public health emergency of international concern. In July 2022, the organization had declared an emergency status due to the outbreak of the disease in several countries.
“As with COVID-19, the end of the emergency does not mean the work is over. COVID-19 continues to present significant public health challenges that require a robust, proactive and sustainable response,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the time.
“Travel-related cases reported in all regions demonstrate the ongoing threat. There is particular risk for people living with untreated HIV infection. It remains important that countries maintain their testing capacity and efforts, assess risks, quantify response needs and act promptly when necessary,” Tedros warned in 2023.
