2023-05-11 19:37:16
The World Health Organization (WHO) has lifted this Thursday the international emergency for monkey smallpox, 10 months after declaring the alert. Six days ago, he declared the end of the covid pandemic
Monkeypox virus by electron microscopy.
End of the monkeypox emergency six days after the announcement of the end of the covid pandemic. The WHO has announced the end of the international emergency due to the outbreak of monkey or simian smallpox, declared in July 2022, a disease that has affected at least 87,000 people in 111 countries, with 140 deaths.
The decision was communicated at a press conference by the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, one day after the meeting of the emergency committee that analyzed the situation of the outbreak on a quarterly basis, whose cases have been reduced by 90 percent in recent years. last three months.
The international emergency for this disease, called mpox by the WHO, rises six days after this UN agency did the same in the case of the covid-19 pandemic, also in response to the decline in cases and deaths, due to which only maintains this level of maximum alert for polio.
WHO, goodbye to monkeypox, although it continues as a challenge for public health
“I am pleased to declare that mpox is no longer an international emergency, but as with covid-19, that does not mean that it has ceased to be a public health challenge,” said Tedros, who added: “The virus it still affects communities in all regions, including Africa”, where the disease is endemic.
The Ethiopian expert added that monkeypox continues to pose risks for certain patients, such as carriers of the HIV virus, while the fact that infections continue to occur among people who travel internationally “shows that the threat continues.”
Tedros has therefore called on the national health networks to maintain their capabilities for tracking and diagnosing possible cases “in order to act quickly if necessary”, reinforcing their integration into health systems.
The first cases, a year ago
At the same press conference, the vice-president of the monkeypox emergency committee, Nicola Low, recalled that the first cases of the outbreak occurred a year ago now (in the United Kingdom) and that the peak of infections occurred in July and august.
“Since then, the reduction in the number of infections has been impressive, the result of the action of public health networks, international cooperation and the affected communities,” he assessed.
Many of those affected were men who have sex with other men, which led the WHO to fear that the outbreak would lead to cases of discrimination and homophobia as in the past occurred with HIV-AIDS, although Tedros has acknowledged that these problems were ultimately less than expected.
“We feared violent reactions towards the most affected communities that did not materialize in general terms and we are grateful for that,” said the general director of the OMS.
In the past three weeks, just 200 cases have been reported worldwide, a 34 percent drop from the previous 21 days.
In the ten months of the outbreak, America ended up being the region that reported the most infections, with more than 59,000 cases, followed by Europe (25,000) and Africa (1,500), the latter continent where there have already been outbreaks of the disease in the past four decades.
By country, the ones that confirmed the most cases were the United States (30,154), Brazil (10,940), Spain (7,551), France (4,146), Colombia (4,090), Mexico (4,010) and Peru (3,800).
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