Mpox surge in Africa called international public health emergency
SAN FRANCISCO -- Health officials around the world are keeping a close eye on an outbreak of mpox, formerly called monkeypox, in Africa.
This year, there have been more than 17,000 confirmed and suspected cases reported in Africa, which is more than the entirety of 2023. Now the World Health Organization has declared the situation a public health emergency.
"The surge of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a growing number of countries in Africa constitutes a public health emergency of international concern," said Farhan Haq, the U.N. Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary General. "WHO is warning also about the potential of this mpox virus to spread further across countries in Africa and possibly outside the continent. To allow for an immediate scale up, WHO has released $1.45 million from the WHO contingency fund for emergencies. It may need to release more in the coming days."
While that declaration may sound alarming, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert from the University of California, San Francisco, says people in the United States don't need to panic and the WHO decision is strategic.
"That particular strain has not been identified in the U.S. or Bay Area yet," he said. "It's not a sound-the-alarm moment. It's really meant to mobilize the world's resources to focus on the place where most of the action is occurring. If we do that successfully, we can prevent this from really making a mark in other places in the world."
Experts say the new clade -- or strain -- of mpox can have more severe outcomes than the one the world saw in 2022 and it is also infecting a wider range of people.
"In 2022, the outbreak was very much limited to one population: Men and trans people who have sex with men. However, what we're seeing in Africa right now and the reason for calling the public health emergency of international concern is that it's crossing populations," Chin-Hong said. "It's really, really important not to stigmatize people."
Although the virus is spreading outside of Africa, Chin-Hong says the risk in the United States remains very low. However, he advises those who are eligible to get vaccinated.
"For those who are eligible to get the vaccine right now, there is enough of it," he said. "Please go ahead and either get it if you haven't gotten it or get the second shot if you've only had one shot. That's men and trans people who have sex with men."
