The global outbreak of monkeypox has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) – the strongest call to action the agency can issue.
It is the seventh time such a declaration has been made since 2009, the latest being for Covid-19, which the WHO gave the same label in 2020, and follows a meeting of a committee of experts on Thursday.
A public health emergency of international concern – or PHEIC – is defined by the WHO’s international health regulations as “an extraordinary event that is determined to pose a public health risk to other countries through the international spread of disease and potentially require a coordinated international response.” .
The UN health agency said the term suggests that the situation is serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected, that it has public health implications beyond national borders and that it may require immediate international attention.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, told a news conference that the committee met on Thursday to review the latest data but failed to reach a consensus. However, he has since decided to break the deadlock by announcing PHEIC.
“In short, we have an outbreak that has spread rapidly around the world through new modes of transmission that we understand very little about and that meet the criteria in international health regulations,” he said. “For all these reasons, I have decided that the global outbreak of monkeypox constitutes a global health emergency of international concern.”
While he said the risk of monkeypox was “moderate” globally, it was “high” in Europe and there was a “clear risk of further international spread”.
Globally, there have been 16,016 cases of monkeypox so far – 4,132 of them in the past week, according to WHO figures. It is now in 75 countries and territories and there have been five deaths.
The European region has the highest number of total cases at 11,865, and the largest increase over the past seven days at 2,705.
Dr Rosamund Lewis, the monkeypox technical lead in the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said: “There is a lot of work to be done.”
She said action needs to be taken to identify what causes risk and reduce situations that can put people at risk so they can protect themselves. “That’s how we’re going to end this epidemic,” she said.
Monkeypox is a viral infection commonly found in animals in central and western Africa, although it can cause outbreaks in humans. Sometimes cases are found in countries where the virus is not endemic, but the latest outbreak is unprecedented.
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While countries in Europe have been most affected, cases have also been reported in the US, Canada, Australia, Nigeria, Israel, Brazil and Mexico, among others.
The WHO said the outbreak was largely among men who have sex with men who reported recently having sex with new or multiple partners. However, experts stressed that anyone can contract monkeypox as it is spread through close or intimate contact, with the UN warning that some media portrayals of Africans and LGBTQ+ people “reinforce homophobic and racist stereotypes and exacerbate stigma”.
Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Emergencies Programme, said: “We all know how difficult it has historically been to deal with problems like this because of the stigma.”
“If nothing else, this is about enlightened self-interest,” he added, as well as “solidarity” with those affected.
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