GENEVA - A World Health Organisation committee of experts met on Thursday to decide whether the monkeypox outbreak constitutes a global health emergency.
A surge of monkeypox cases has been detected since May outside of the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic. Most of the new cases have been in Western Europe.
"The outbreak in newly-affected countries continues to be primarily among men who have sex with men, and who have reported recent sex with new or multiple partners," he said, via video-link from the Commonwealth summit in the Rwandan capital Kigali.He said that in addition to the 3,200-plus confirmed cases, almost 1,500 suspected cases of monkeypox and around 70 suspected deaths have been reported in central Africa this year.
The pending decision has stirred criticism from leading African scientists who say that monkeypox has been a crisis in their region for years. "If there is the political will to share equitably the means of response between developed and developing countries...each country will be able to benefit," he said.There have been six PHEIC declarations since 2009, the last being for Covid-19 in 2020 - though the sluggish global response to the alarm bell still rankles at the WHO's Geneva headquarters.
"There are no easy-to-use tests to detect it. This is essentially done at the clinical level. So an important issue is to have testing which is done earlier and which makes it possible to detect cases, particularly among case contacts," he told AFP.