The World Health Organization will convene an emergency commission on Thursday next week to assess whether the outbreak of monkeypox is a public health emergency of international importance.
This is the highest level of warning issued by the UN agency, which currently only applies to the pandemic of COVID-19 and polio.
There are 1,600 confirmed and 1,500 suspected cases of monkeypox this year and 72 deaths, the WHO said, in 39 countries, including those where the virus is common.
Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, but in recent months there have been more cases in these countries and in the rest of the world. The virus causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesions and is spread through close contact.
It is estimated to be fatal in about three to six percent of cases, according to the WHO, although no deaths have yet been reported from the outbreak outside Africa. The majority of deaths this year are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adanom Gebrejesus said it was time to consider stepping up the response, as the virus is behaving abnormally, more countries are affected and international coordination is needed.
“We do not want to wait until the situation is out of control,” added Ibrahima Sose Fol, WHO’s director of emergency for Africa.
More than 100 known infections in Canada
England managed to find the most cases in the last outbreak, over 450.
Canada found 112 infections as of June 9, with federal health officials expected to update this week.
The committee’s meeting next week will be convened by world experts, but the WHO director-general is making the final decision on whether the outbreak deserves the label of international public health emergency known as PHEIC.
Experts urge the WHO to act faster within weeks of criticism of the agency’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Along with COVID and polio, other outbreaks have been declared for PHEIC, such as Ebola in 2014.
However, a committee may also withdraw from raising an alarm. When the WHO Emergency Committee was set up to consider whether the outbreak of yellow fever in West Africa in 2016 deserved the highest level of threat to the agency, it ultimately decided not to.
The WHO’s definition that the outbreak is a global health emergency could help speed up research and funding to control the disease.
Tedros also said the WHO is working with partners to change the name of the monkeypox and its variants, as well as a mechanism to help share available vaccines more fairly.
WATCH Concerns are growing due to the likelihood of multiple strains:
Two different strains of monkeypox are circulating, say US health officials
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified two different strains of the monkeypox virus in the country and said the virus could circulate undetected.
Some countries have begun vaccinating healthcare workers and close contacts of monkeypox patients using vaccines against smallpox, a related and more serious virus that was eradicated in the 1980s.
The WHO issued new guidelines for vaccination against monkeypox earlier on Tuesday.
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