The World Health Organization does not believe the monkeypox outbreak outside Africa will lead to a pandemic, an official said on Monday.
More than 300 suspected and confirmed cases of monkeypox, a usually mild illness that spreads through close contact causing flu-like symptoms and a distinctive rash, have been reported in May, mostly in Europe.
The WHO is considering whether the outbreak should be assessed as a “potential public health emergency of international concern” or PHEIC. Such a declaration, as was done for COVID-19 and Ebola, would help accelerate research and funding to contain the disease. Asked whether this monkeypox outbreak has the potential to grow into a pandemic, Rosamund Lewis, technical lead for monkeypox from the WHO Health Emergencies Programme said: “We don’t know but we don’t think so.”We apologize, but this video has failed to load.The strain of virus implicated in the outbreak is understood to kill a small fraction of those infected, but no deaths have been reported so far.
Most cases have cropped up in Europe rather than in the Central and West African countries where the virus is endemic, and are predominantly not linked to travel. Scientists are therefore looking into what might explain this unusual upsurge of cases, while public health authorities suspect there is some degree of community transmission.Share this article in your social network
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