The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the Mpox surge in Africa a global public health emergency, PHEIC, raising the alarm over the worsening situation.
Mpox is an infectious disease caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals. It can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.
The disease causes fever, muscular aches, and large boil-like skin lesions and can be fatal if left untreated.
The WHO called a meeting of experts to study the outbreak and recommend a solution to the UN health agency’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “I have accepted their advice. This is something that should concern us all,” Tedros told a press conference on Wednesday.
A public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) is the highest alarm the WHO can sound.
The decision comes after the African Union’s health watchdog declared its public health emergency over the growing outbreak.
Worrisome Spreading
Mpox (formerly called MonkeyPox) has swept through the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the virus was first discovered in humans in 1970. Over 14,000 cases and 524 deaths reported so far this year in DR Congo have already exceeded last year’s total.
The emergence of the clade 1b variant in DRC, which appears to be spreading mainly through sexual networks, and its detection in countries neighboring DRC is of grave concern.
In the past month, about 90 cases of clade 1b have been reported in four countries neighboring the DRC that have not reported Mpox before: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.
Since 2009, a PHEIC has only been declared seven times: over H1N1 swine flu, poliovirus, Ebola, Zika virus, Ebola again, COVID-19, and Mpox. Priorities remain: investing in diagnostic capacity, public health response, treatment support, and vaccination.
The Red Cross is scaling up preparedness measures across Africa, notably in the heavily affected eastern DRC.
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