By Hauwa Ali
The World Health Organization has declared that monkeypox should continue to be classified as a global health emergency.
Emergency committee had determined this when they “held the consensus view that the event continues to meet the … criteria for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” according to a statement issued by WHO on Tuesday.
WHO, who had first declared the highest level of alarm on July 23, said that while some progress had been made in reining in the disease, it was too soon to declare the emergency over.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had accepted and agreed with the experts’ advice, the statement said.
Since monkeypox suddenly began spreading beyond the West African countries where it has long been endemic six months ago, it has killed 36 people out of more than 77,000 cases across 109 countries, according to a WHO count.
The outbreak outside of West Africa has primarily affected young men who have sex with men.
But since peaking in July, the number of people infected with the disease that causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions, has consistently fallen, particularly in Europe and North America, the hardest hit areas in the early stages of the global outbreak.
The number of new global cases fell by 41 percent in the seven days up to Monday compared to the previous week, the WHO said.
But WHO’s emergency committee stressed that there were a number of lingering causes for concern.
They listed ongoing transmission in some regions, continuing preparedness and response inequity within and between countries, and the potential for greater health impacts if the virus begins spreading more among more vulnerable populations.
