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World Health Organization Sounds Its Highest Alert Over Monkeypox

The World Health Organization has issued its highest alert over Monkeypox. This marks our second in two years, after COVID-19 in 2020.

The World Health Organization has declared monkeypox a global health emergency—its highest alert, per CNBC, which indicates that a coordinated international response is needed to stem the spread and prevent a pandemic.

The WHO’s last global health emergency was COVID-19 in 2020.

WHO director general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Saturday overruled a panel of advisers after they were unable to come to a consensus and declared a “public health emergency of international concern.” The only other diseases that WHO uses this designation for are COVID-19 and polio.

“This process demonstrates once again that this vital tool needs to be sharpened to make it more effective,” Dr. Tedros said. “We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little, and which meets the criteria” for a public health emergency.

Monkeypox has primarily spread through skin-to-skin contact during sex, and so far this year, 16,000 cases have been reported.

The virus has now spread to at least 75 countries.

Europe is the current epicenter of the outbreak, but the U.S. confirmed its first cases in children on Friday. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention said 36 is the average age of people affected.

Anyone can contract monkeypox, but for now, men who have sex with men are at highest risk.

Per CNBC, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that most patients are recovering within two to four weeks; at present, no deaths have been reported outside of Africa.