The World Health Organization is holding a meeting of the relevant expert committee monkeypox Thursday to determine whether the current increase in the number of infections constitutes a public health emergency of international concern.
“Whatever the committee recommends, WHO will continue to do everything in its power to stop monkeypox and save lives,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference on Wednesday.
This emergency committee will also be tasked with evaluating epidemiological indicators, while the situation has worsened in recent weeks, with more than 14,500 injuries recorded in 70 countries, according to figures issued by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
98% of cases are for men
Outside Africa, “men make up 99 percent of reported cases” and that 98 percent of these are “men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple or new partners,” Dr Rosamund Lewis, the lead expert on monkeypox at the World Health Organization said Wednesday. or unknown,” according to Agence France-Presse.
It is noteworthy that in the first meeting held on June 23, the majority of experts recommended that Tedros not declare a public health emergency of international concern.
Few Vaccines
In addition, the UN health agency is working in parallel with member states and experts to enhance research and development on the virus.
“Although we are witnessing a downward trend in some countries, other countries are still facing a rise in the number of infections, and six countries reported their first cases last week,” Tedros said.
He also added that “some of these countries have much weaker access to diagnostics and vaccines, which makes it difficult to track and stop the spread of the disease,” while a large amount of vaccines are not available.
And the Danish company “Bavarin Nordic”, which is the only laboratory that produces a licensed vaccine once morest monkeypox, announced Tuesday that it had received an order for 1.5 million doses, most of which will be delivered in 2023, from an unnamed European country, while the United States requested 2.5 million doses.
Europe is the epicenter of the disease
It is noteworthy that since the discovery of the first monkeypox infections in early May, infection with this epidemic has begun to spread outside the countries of Central and West Africa, where the virus is endemic. Hence, it spread all over the world, with Europe as its epicenter.
In most cases, those infected are men who have sex with men and are relatively young, and they mainly live in cities, according to the World Health Organization.
Monkeypox – Emoji from iStock
As of July 18, the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 7,896 cases of monkeypox virus.
Spain was the most affected, with 2,835 injuries, followed by Germany (1924), France (912), the Netherlands (656) and Portugal (515), while the majority of cases belong to “groups of men who have sex with men, aged between 18 and 50.”
Monkeypox, discovered in humans in the 1970s, is considered to be less dangerous and contagious than smallpox that was eradicated in 1980.
