The World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling upon its emergency committee to assess the international spread of the monkeypox virus (mpox) as soon as possible.
WHO Executive Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu made the announcement at a press conference on Wednesday.
The committee, made up of experts, has to determine whether there is a need to declare a health emergency – the highest level of alert – for the epidemic currently spreading across various African nations.
Since the start of this year, the monkeypox virus has been rampaging in Congo. The Central African country has already reported over 14,000 suspected cases and at least 511 deaths.
Although the WHO has a regional response plan in place, it does not dismiss the potential for the virus to spread within the region, since cases have also been registered in several neighbouring countries.
Two vaccines against monkeypox exist, Ghebreyesus reported, encouraging international collaboration to speed up the production and distribution of these vaccines to the most affected nations.
The virus was first detected in humans in 1970 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. May 2022 saw a significant rise in the number of people infected with mpox globally.
A variant of the virus, Clade II, affected primarily homosexual and bisexual men, and led the WHO to declare an emergency from July 2022 to May 2023.
The more prevalent variant of the virus now is Clade Ib, believed to be more lethal than its predecessor.
