Supianto | Thursday, 21/07/2022 15:33 WIB
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The palms of a monkeypox case patient from Lodja, a city located within the Katako-Kombe Health Zone, are seen during a health investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997. Brian WJ Mahy/CDC/Handout via REUTERS
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JAKARTA, Jurnas.com – The World Health Organization (WHO) will reconvene a committee of monkeypox experts on Thursday (21/7) to decide whether the outbreak is now a global health emergency.
The second meeting of the emergency committee WHO about the virus will be held to examine evidence about the deteriorating situation, with nearly 14,000 cases reported from more than 70 countries.
A spike in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.
On June 23, WHO formed an emergency expert committee to decide whether monkeypox constitutes the so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) – the UN health agency’s highest alert level.
However, the majority informed the Director General WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that the situation, at that time, had not yet met the threshold. Now a second meeting will be held, with the number of cases rising and spreading to six more countries in the past week.
If the committee notifies Tedros that the outbreak is a PHEIC, he will propose interim recommendations on how to better prevent and reduce the spread of the disease and manage the global public health response.
However, there is no timetable for when the results will be announced.
The committee will look at the latest trends and data, how effective preventive measures are and make recommendations for what countries and communities should do to tackle the outbreak.
“Despite the decision of the PHEIC committee, WHO will continue to do everything we can to support countries to stop contagion and save lives,” Tedros said at a news conference.
It says WHO is validating, administering and sending tests to several countries, but says one of the most powerful tools in the fight against monkeypox is information.
“That is the reason WHO continue to work with patients and community advocates to develop and deliver information tailored to the affected community,” said Tedros.
Emergency Director WHOMichael Ryan said the LGBTQ community is one of the most engaged and responsible, having worked hard for decades to fight HIV.
“So we therefore have full confidence that this community can, and will, and is, very closely involved.”
A viral infection that resembles smallpox and was first detected in humans in 1970, monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said Monday that 7,896 confirmed cases were reported from 27 countries in the European Economic Area. The worst affected were Spain (2,835), Germany (1924), France (912), the Netherlands (656), and Portugal (515).
“Certain sexual practices are very likely to have facilitated and may further facilitate transmission of monkeypox among groups who have sex with men (MSM),” he said.
Danish company Bavarian Nordic is the only laboratory producing a licensed vaccine against monkeypox and jab is currently in scarce supply.
New York, the epicenter of the US outbreak with more than 460 cases, had administered or scheduled 21,500 vaccines as of Sunday (17/7), with long lines of men aged 20 to 40 queuing to get the shot.
Loyce Pace, the US assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, said it was very difficult for the world to deal with monkeypox other than COVID-19 and other health crises. “I know this can be scary and, frankly, exhausting,” he told reporters at the US mission in Geneva.
“However, we know more about this disease, we have been able to stop outbreaks before and we, importantly, have medical precautions and other tools available.”
TAGS : Monkey Pox Monkeypox World Health Emergency WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
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