The World Health Organization (WHO), has declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
The decision was announced on Saturday morning after WHO convened its second emergency committee on the issue on Thursday.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.
“While the committee was unable to reach a consensus, I came to the decision after considering the five elements required on deciding whether an outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern,” he said.
Ghebreyesus added that while he was declaring monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern is because for the moment it is an outbreak that’s concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those who have multiple partners, that means that this is an outbreak that can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups.
WHO initially stopped short of declaring the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern after its first emergency committee meeting on June 23.
At that time Tedros said, “The emergency committee advised that at the moment, the event does not constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern but acknowledged the evolving health threat that WHO would be following extremely closely,” he added.
WHO defines a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) as an extraordinary event that constitutes a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response.
The organization’s emergency committee on monkeypox first met in late June, when its members reported serious concerns about the scale and speed of the virus outbreak but said it didn’t constitute a PHEIC. Tedros reconvened the committee in order to provide the latest information.
“The PHEIC designation comes from the International Health Regulations created in 2005, and it represents an international agreement to help prevent and respond to public health risks that have the potential to spread around the globe,” he said.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention describes the regulations as “a legally binding agreement of 196 countries to build the capability to detect and report potential public health emergencies worldwide. IHR requires that all countries have the ability to detect, assess, report, and respond to public health events.
According to the CDC, the monkeypox virus can be spread through contact with body fluids, sores or items such as clothing and bedding contaminated with the virus. It can also spread from person to person through respiratory droplets, typically in a close setting.
Anyone who has had contact with someone with a monkeypox-like rash, or who has had contact with someone who has probable or confirmed case of monkeypox, is at high risk for infection. A large number of cases this year have been in men who have sex with men, and public health officials are focusing their prevention efforts in this group.
