The World Health Organization (WHO) declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years on Wednesday, following an outbreak of the viral infection in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to neighboring countries.
Mpox can be transmitted through close contact. It is usually mild and in rare cases, fatal. It causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body.
The United Nations earlier held a meeting of experts to decide whether the rise in mpox in Africa should be declared a global public health emergency.
The gathering of 16 international figures came after the African Union's health watchdog declared its own public health emergency over the growing outbreak.
Mpox has spread to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the virus formerly called monkeypox was first discovered in humans in 1970, and has spread to other countries.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths reported so far this year in the Democratic Republic of Congo have already surpassed last year's total.
“The emergence last year and rapid spread of clade 1b in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which appears to spread primarily through sexual networks, and its detection in countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of the Congo is particularly worrying and one of the main reasons for my decision to convene this emergency committee,” he said as he opened the meeting.
“In the past month, approximately 90 clade 1b cases have been reported in four countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of the Congo that had not previously reported mpox: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.”
“But we are not dealing with one outbreak of one clade: we are dealing with multiple outbreaks of different clades in different countries with different modes of transmission and different levels of risk,” Tedros said.
In May 2022, mpox infections increased worldwide and the WHO declared a public health emergency lasting from July 2022 to May 2023. The outbreak, which has now largely subsided, caused about 140 deaths out of about 90,000 cases.
Subclade 1b, which has been increasing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since September 2023, causes more severe disease than clade 2b, with a higher mortality rate.
WHO immunization experts recommend two mpox vaccines.
