This is the highest level of warning issued by the United Nations agency, which currently only applies to the COVID-19 pandemic and polio. There have been 1,600 confirmed and 1,500 suspected cases of smallpox this year and 72 deaths, according to the WHO, in 39 countries, including those where the virus is most common. Monkey pox is endemic in parts of Africa, but there have been more cases both in these countries and in the rest of the world in recent months. The virus causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesions and spreads through close contact. It is estimated to be fatal in about 3 to 6 percent of cases, according to the WHO, although no deaths have yet been reported in the outbreak outside Africa. The majority of deaths this year occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. WHO Director-General of the Tetro Ananom Gebregesus said it was time to consider speeding up the response because the virus is behaving unusually, more countries are affected and there is a need for international coordination. “We do not want to wait for the situation to get out of control,” said Ibrahima Socé Fall, WHO’s director of emergency in Africa.
More than 100 known infections in Canada
England managed to identify the most cases in the last outbreak, in more than 450. Canada has identified 112 infections as of June 9, with federal health officials expected to update the number this week. The committee meeting next week will be made up of global experts, but the WHO director-general will make the final decision on whether the outbreak is worthy of the public health emergency label known as PHEIC. Experts have been pushing the WHO for faster action for several weeks, following criticism of the body’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to COVID and polio, other outbreaks have been identified as PHEIC, such as Ebola in 2014. However, a committee may also withdraw from the notice. When a WHO emergency committee was set up to look into whether the yellow fever outbreak in West Africa in 2016 deserved the body’s highest level of threat, it finally decided not to do so. WHO identification of an epidemic as a global health emergency can help accelerate research and funding to reduce a disease. Tentros also said that the WHO is working with partners to change the name of monkey pox and its variants, as well as a mechanism that will help in the fairer sharing of available vaccines. CLOCKS Concern is growing about the possibility of multiple executives:
Two different strains of monkey pox are circulating, say US health officials
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified two different strains of monkey pox in this country and say the virus can go unnoticed. Some countries have begun to vaccinate health care workers and close contacts of patients with smallpox using monkeypox vaccines, a related and more serious virus that was eradicated in the 1980s. The WHO issued new guidelines for monkeypox vaccination earlier on Tuesday.
