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The World Health Organization declared the ongoing outbreak of COPD in Africa a global health emergency on Wednesday.
The WHO convened its emergency committee over concerns that a more deadly strain of the virus, clade Ib, had reached four previously unaffected countries. African countries. This strain was previously confined to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The independent experts met virtually on Wednesday to advise WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the severity of the outbreak. After the consultation, he announced that he had declared a public health emergency of international concern, the highest level of alert under international health law.
“The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern DRC, its detection in neighbouring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further spread to Africa and beyond are of great concern,” he said.
“The emergency committee met and informed me that the situation constituted a public health emergency of international concern. I accepted that advice.”
Also known as a PHEIC, this is a status granted by the WHO to “extraordinary events” that pose a risk to the public health of other countries due to the international spread of a disease. These outbreaks may require a coordinated international response, according to the organization.
“There was a general recognition that the current MPOX epidemic, the MPOX resurgence, is an extraordinary event,” said committee chair Dimie Ogoina. “What we have in Africa is just the tip of the iceberg. … We don’t recognize, or we don’t have a full picture, of this MPOX burden.”
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the outbreak a continental security public health emergency on Tuesday, the first such declaration by the agency since its creation in 2017.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 17,000 cases of MPOX and more than 500 deaths have been reported in 13 countries across Africa, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which classifies the outbreak as a “very high-risk event.” The largest number of cases — more than 14,000 — are in the DRC, which has reported 96% of confirmed cases this month.
Monkeypox, formerly known as monkey pox, is a viral disease that can spread easily from person to person and from infected animals. According to the WHO, it can be spread through close contact, such as touching, kissing, or sexual intercourse, as well as through contaminated materials such as bed linens, clothing, and needles. Symptoms include fever, painful rash, headache, muscle and back pain, low energy, and enlarged lymph nodes.
For decades, the disease was mainly present in Central and West Africa, but it also began to spread to Europe and North America in 2022. WHO had previously declared the spread of mpox a global health emergency in July 2022 and ended this declaration in May 2023.
Mpox virus is characterized by two genetic clades, I and II. A clade is a large group of viruses that has evolved over decades and is a genetically and clinically distinct group. Clade II is responsible for the 2022 outbreak, but clade Ib causes more severe disease.
“But we are not facing a single outbreak of a single clade; we are facing multiple outbreaks of different clades in different countries with different modes of transmission and different levels of risk,” Tedros said.
No cases of the I mpox clade have been identified in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, but it is monitoring the situation and the U.S. government has offered funding, assistance and vaccines to the WHO and the DRC to support efforts in Africa.
Last week, the CDC recommended that people in the United States who are exposed to or at high risk of getting MPOS get vaccinated.
WHO officials said last week that the virus could be contained “fairly easily, if we do the right things at the right time.” They also called for international cooperation to fund and organize efforts to stop the outbreak and to fund research to better understand clade Ib and its spread.
“It is clear that a coordinated international response is essential to stop these outbreaks and save lives,” Tedros said on Wednesday.
The organization approved the emergency use listing process for both MPOX vaccines and developed a regional response plan requiring $15 million, including $1.5 million from the WHO Emergency Fund for Emergencies.
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Half a million doses of the vaccine are in stock and another 2.4 million could be produced by the end of the year, according to Tim Nguyen of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme. The DRC and Nigeria will be the first to receive these vaccines, added Dr Abdou Salam Gueye, regional director for health emergencies for Africa.
The organization stressed that vaccines are only part of the answer; containing the spread will also require increased surveillance, diagnostics and research to fill “gaps in understanding.”
“We can stop the transmission of MPOX through a concerted effort using multiple approaches,” said Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Director of WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention.
“There are many uncertainties. (…) We now have the opportunity to take advantage of this period and help our Member States support the research that needs to be carried out to understand this phenomenon.”
