Monkeypox: WHO cancels international emergency
- May 11, 2023
- 0
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared this Thursday an end to the international emergency due to the outbreak of monkeypox or monkeypox declared last July for a disease
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared this Thursday an end to the international emergency due to the outbreak of monkeypox or monkeypox declared last July for a disease that affected at least 87,000 people in 111 countries, with 140 deaths.
This decision was announced at a press conference by the Director General of WHO. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a day after the meeting of the emergency committee, which reviewed the outbreak on a quarterly basis, the number of cases of which has decreased by 90 percent in the past three months.
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 a decrease in cases and deaths, for this reason only this maximum danger level is maintained for poliomyelitis.
“I am happy to say that mpox is no longer an international emergency, but as with covid-19, this does not mean that it has ceased to be a public health problem,” Tedros said today, noting that “the virus is still affects communities in all regions, including Africa” where the disease is endemic.
The Ethiopian expert added that monkeypox It still poses a risk to some patients, such as those who carry the HIV virus, and the fact that infections continue to occur among people traveling the world “shows that the threat remains.”
Therefore, Tedros urged national health networks to maintain their ability to track and diagnose possible cases “to act quickly when necessary”, strengthening their integration into Health systems.
At the same press conference, Vice President of the Monkeypox Emergency Committee, Nicola Low, recalled that the first cases of the outbreak occurred a year ago (in the United Kingdom), and the peak of infections occurred in July and August.
“Since then, decrease in the number of infections This was an impressive result of public health networks, international collaborations and affected communities,” he said.
Many of the victims were men who had sex with other men, leading to World Health Organization fear that the outbreak will lead to cases of discrimination and homophobia, as happened with HIV AIDSalthough Tedros acknowledged today that these problems ended up being fewer than expected.
“We feared a violent response to the most affected communities, which generally did not materialize, and we are grateful for that,” he said.
Only 200 cases have been reported worldwide in the past three weeks, a 34% decrease from the previous 21 days.
For ten months of the epidemic America was the region with the highest number of infections. with over 59,000 cases, followed by Europe (25,000) and Africa (1,500), the last continent to have seen outbreaks in the last four decades.
By country, those with the most confirmed cases were:
- USA (30,154);
- Brazil (10,940);
- Spain (7,551);
- France (4146);
- Colombia (4090);
- Mexico (4010); And,
- Peru (3800).
EFE
Source: Aristegui Noticias
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