The rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organization’s highest level of alert, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said today, reported Reuters.
“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly, through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little, and which meets the criteria in the International Health Regulations,” said Tedros following IHR Emergency Committee regarding the multi-country outbreak of monkeypox.
“For all of these reasons, I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern,” he said.
It is the seventh time such a declaration has been made since 2009, the most recent being for Covid-19, which was given the same lebel by the WHO in 2020 and follows a meeting of a committee of experts on Thursday, according to The Guardian.
Tedros also underlined that although the WHO is declaring Monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern “but for the moment this is an outbreak that is concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners.”
There are now more than 16 thousand reported cases from 75 countries and territories, and five deaths.
More to follow
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