Monkeypox: What is a global health emergency as declared by the WHO?

World Health Organization (WHO) declared the monkeypox outbreak a global emergency on Saturday (July 23).

News comes as The total number of cases in the UK is over 2,000.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the risk of monkeypox infection worldwide is moderate, except for Europe, where the WHO considers the risk high.

But what is a global health emergency and has it been declared before?

Here’s everything you need to know.

What is a global emergency?

A global emergency is the WHO’s highest level of alert.

The designation means that the WHO considers the outbreak to be a sufficiently significant threat to global health that urgent action is required. stop its further spread and can turn into a pandemic.

The declaration is intended to generate an international response and could lead to funding for cooperation sharing vaccines and treatments.

Under the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005, states have a legal obligation to respond promptly to PHEICs.

Before declaring a global health emergency, WHO’s emergency committee meets to weigh the evidence and make recommendations to the director-general.

The committee met last month to declare monkeypox a global emergency, but decided against it.

At that time, there were 3,040 cases in 47 countries.

However, the situation has accelerated rapidly since then – there are now 16,000 cases in 75 countries and five deaths.

They met again on Thursday and split the decision, with nine members against and six in favor of the declaration – forcing Tedros to break the deadlock.

He said: “We have an outbreak that has spread rapidly around the world through new modes of transmission that we know too little about.

“For all these reasons, I have decided that the global outbreak of monkeypox constitutes a public health emergency of international concern.”

Has a world emergency been declared before?

Yes, the WHO declared a global public health emergency six more times – the first time was swine flu in 2009.

Designations are temporary and require review every three months.

There was Covid-19 On January 30, 2020, a global public health emergency was declared.

At that time, 170 people died from the virus in China, with 98 cases in 18 countries outside the country.

MORE: New symptoms of monkeypox detected in the UK have surpassed 2,000 cases

MORE: A person contracted monkeypox and covid at the same time

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