‘Emergency’: Australia enacts major response to Monkeypox

Monkeypox has been declared a global health emergency, triggering extraordinary measures from the federal government.

An infectious diseases expert has sounded the alarm that monkeypox cases could go undetected as the nation deals with the latest Omicron wave.

There are just 44 cases of monkeypox in Australia, including 24 in NSW, 16 in Victoria, two in the ACT, one in Queensland and one in South Australia.

But globally case numbers are following an “alarming trajectory”, Dr Paul Griffin said.

“Two weeks ago, we were below 10,000. Now we're over 16,000. It is increasing in … case numbers around the world and it’s a bit of an alarming trajectory that clearly needs a response to try and slow that down,” he told ABC’s Radio National.

Cases have topped 16,000 globally. (Photo by Freya KAULBARS / RKI Robert Koch Institute / AFP)

The National Incident Centre was activated on the weekend after the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak a global emergency.

It is the second time the body has been activated in as many years and will see the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee co-ordinate the response across state and territories.

Deakin University epidemiology chair Catherine Bennett said the majority of the cases in Australia had been linked to international travel.

“We are not seeing a lot of local transmission here. But at the same time when you have the numbers getting up around the world it’s much harder to know when someone might have been exposed and to manage this risk well,” she told Sky News.

The WHO declaration would enable a “good public health response” to ensure the virus containment, Dr Bennett said.

“It is better to be prevention focused rather than response,” she said.

But as Australia grapples with surging cases of Covid-19, Dr Griffin warned there is the potential for cases to not be picked up.

“That sort of pressure on the healthcare system and limited capacity to deal with the normal things does raise the potential for missed cases,” he said.

Monkeypox rash lesions in a person with the virus (Photo by Handout / UK Health Security Agency / AFP)

“We need to make sure that we address the Covid issue … and make sure we do continue to educate our clinicians and the general public about this, so that the chance of missing cases is as low as possible.”

A vaccine for the virus and treatments are available in the National Medical Stockpile but global supply is “fairly constrained”.

“Nobody predicted the gravity of this situation,” Dr Griffin added.