Health workers help people waiting to be vaccinated at one of the monkeypox vaccination sites in New York, United States, on July 14, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)
GENEVA, July 23 (Xinhua) — The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared Saturday that the current outbreak of monkeypox in several countries outside the traditional endemic areas of Africa has now turned into a public health emergency of concern.
After the World Health Organization’s emergency committee appealed on Thursday over the outbreak, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the decision at a press conference on Saturday to alert the highest level a global health official can issue for the time being, even without the panel’s unanimous vote.
“In short, we have an outbreak that has spread rapidly across the world, with new routes of transmission, about which we don’t understand much and that meet the standards of the International Health Regulations,” Tedros said.
Health workers help people waiting to be vaccinated at one of the monkeypox vaccination sites in New York, United States, on July 14, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)
“For all these reasons, I have determined that the worldwide outbreak of monkeypox represents a public health emergency of international concern,” he noted.
He cited five reasons behind the decision. First, the information provided by countries shows that this virus has spread rapidly to many countries that did not have it before; Second, the three criteria for declaring a primary health emergency under the International Health Regulations are met; Third, the emergency committee’s opinion, even without consensus. Fourth, the principles, scientific evidence and other relevant information that are currently not sufficient and leave us with a lot of unknowns; And fifth, the danger to human health, the international spread and the potential for interference with international traffic.
However, he added, currently, smallpox outbreaks are concentrated among men who have sexual relations with each other, especially those who have more than one partner. “This means that this is an outbreak that can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups,” he said.
Tedros first convened the WHO’s Emergency Committee in late June, after which I informed him that the event did not constitute a health emergency. According to Tedros on Saturday, the outbreak continued to climb to more than 16,000 cases from 75 countries and regions reported to the World Health Organization, including five deaths.
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