We are not facing a new Covid and we do not yet know if it will become a global phenomenon. But the infection from a certain moment on did not stop and it became difficult to eliminate it
PICK, or Public Health Emergency of International Concern. a sail that we have become accustomed to knowing by now. L’World Health Organization stated ben six times the status of PHEIC starting from 2009year of the pandemic from influenza virus H1N1followed in 2014 from the polio (failure to eradicate due to persistence of outbreaks in some Asian states) and the emergence of cases of Ebola in Central Africa, in 2015/16 from the diffusion of Zikais in the 2018-20 still due to the epidemic of Ebola in three West African states, ending with the pandemic of COVID-1. In several cases it was localized crisesin others of global eventsbut always of phenomena considered extraordinarywho therefore requested one coordinated international response, under the International Health Regulations, developed in 2005, after the crisis caused by SARS in 2003. now then the turn of the monkeypox (monkeypox, ndr).
Although the emergency committee, which at a first meeting had expressed the opposite, remained divided on the opportunity to declare it PHEIC, the DG of theWHO therefore considered it important to bring the issue to the attention of member states in order to encourage a call to action.
In fact, the monkeypox (the name does not do justice to the marginal role played by monkeys in the circulation of the virus), confined for decades to tropical Africa, starting from May it began to spread in Europe (over 10 thousand cases since the beginning of its appearance).
Luckily, the viral strain that is also circulating in our country (in Italy, 407 cases have so far been reported to the Ministry of Health, which has for some time activated a special surveillance system, of which only 2 in women) similar to that endemic in West Africa, and causes less aggressive clinical forms than that present in Central Africa.
In Africa, monkeypox cases have increased over time following the end of vaccination campaigns and the subsequent eradication of smallpox, a close but much more virulent relative of monkeypox. Indeed, the smallpox vaccine can also prevent monkeypox in about 85% of cases.
Until last year, sporadic cases of imports had been reported in Europe, until something changed, and the virus – once introduced in our continent – was amplified by some events, the main one being the pride held in May in the Canary Islands.
The infection, transmitted through direct contact (including sexual contact), has never stopped, and eliminating it has now become difficult.
for this reason, the WHO deems it necessary to focus attention on a viral infection that does not appear to be highly transmissible or particularly aggressive from a clinical point of view and is now declared PHEIC.
In short, we are not facing a new COVID-19 and we do not yet know if it will become a global phenomenonbut – in a world already full of problems – we would have gladly done without monkeypox!
* Epidemiologist and Director General of Prevention of the Ministry of Health
July 24, 2022 (change July 24, 2022 | 18:47)
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