The World Health Organization has stopped short of raising alert over the widening monkeypox outbreak to the highest-possible level during an emergency committee meeting on Saturday, even as the head of the UN watchdog, Tedros Ghebreyesus, called it “clearly an evolving health threat.”
“I am deeply concerned by the spread of monkeypox, which has now been identified in more than 50 countries, across five WHO regions, with 3000 cases since early May,” Ghebreyesus said in a statement following the meeting.
The International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, comprising two dozen of health experts and scientists from across the globe, noted that “many aspects of the current multi-country outbreak are unusual.”
However, even though “a few members expressed differing views,” the committee eventually reached a consensus to advise “that at this stage the outbreak should be determined to not constitute a PHEIC.”
Only the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and ongoing global efforts to eradicate polio are currently designated as a PHEIC, or a public health emergency of international concern, by the WHO. Back on January 23, 2020, the health body initially declined to declare Covid-19 a PHEIC, upgraded the threat level a week later.