WHO to assess if monkeypox is a health emergency

The World Health ­Organisation will hold an emergency meeting next week to determine whether to classify the global monkeypox outbreak as an international health emergency.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says 1600 confirmed monkeypox cases and 1500 suspected cases have been reported to the WHO this year from 39 countries. Picture: AFP

The World Health ­Organisation will hold an emergency meeting next week to determine whether to classify the global monkeypox outbreak as an international health emergency.

The UN agency is also working to change the name of the disease, which was long confined to western and central Africa until more than 1000 cases were detected in dozens of countries across the world over the last two months.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the emergency committee will meet next Thursday to discuss the designation, which is the highest alarm the UN agency can sound.

The notice of a name change comes after more than 30 scientists wrote last week that there was an “urgent need for a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatising ­nomenclature for monkeypox”.

“In the context of the current global outbreak, continued reference to, and nomenclature of this virus being African is not only inaccurate but is also discriminatory and stigmatising,” they wrote.

While monkeypox was first discovered in macaques, many cases are believed to be transmitted to humans by rodents.

The normal initial symptoms of monkeypox include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a blistery chickenpox-like rash. However, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that current cases do not always present flu-like symptoms, and rashes are sometimes limited to certain areas.

Dr Tedros said that 1600 confirmed monkeypox cases and 1500 suspected cases have been reported to the WHO this year from 39 countries, 32 of which have been recently hit by the virus.

While 72 deaths have been reported in countries where monkeypox was already endemic, none have been seen in the newly affected countries, Dr Tedros said.

AFP