"A public health emergency": WHO maintains its alert for MPOX and calls for "continued international support"

"A public health emergency of international concern." The World Health Organization declared on Monday, June 9, that it was maintaining alert for the outbreak of mpox , which is mainly affecting Africa , and called for "continued international support." WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus "announced that the mpox outbreak continues to meet the criteria for a public health emergency of international concern" (PHEIC), according to a statement.

Until last year, the PHEIC was the highest alert level for an epidemic under the International Health Regulations (IHR), a legally binding framework for its 196 States Parties (the 194 WHO Member States, Liechtenstein, and the Holy See). However, amendments adopted in June 2024 by the countries of the World Health Organization introduced a higher alert level: that of "pandemic emergency."

The decision to maintain the alert in the face of the resurgence of MPOX follows the fourth meeting of the RSI Emergency Committee on June 5.

The committee, while "recognizing the progress made in the response capacity of some countries," informed the Director-General that the event continued to constitute a PHEIC, due to the continued increase in the number of cases, including recently in West Africa, and "the likely continuation of undetected transmission in some countries beyond the African continent," the WHO explains.

"The ongoing operational challenges" in responding to the epidemic, "including surveillance and testing, as well as a lack of funding, make it difficult to prioritize interventions and require continued international support," the organization continued.

The head of the WHO had declared this PHEIC on August 14, 2024, in response to the rapid spread of the disease, formerly known as monkeypox, in Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The WHO had made the same decision in July 2022, when a monkeypox epidemic spread across the world, before lifting it in May 2023.

"Since the beginning of 2024, more than 37,000 confirmed cases of COPD have been reported to WHO by 25 countries, including 125 deaths," the WHO chief told the emergency committee on Friday.

The DRC alone accounts for 60% of confirmed cases and 40% of deaths, followed by Uganda, Burundi, and Sierra Leone, which has seen an increase in cases since the beginning of this year. In addition to confirmed cases, the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to report between 2,000 and 3,000 suspected cases each week.

Since the committee's previous meeting in February, seven more countries have reported outbreaks for the first time: Albania, Ethiopia, Malawi, North Macedonia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Togo, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted.

"We need strategic and targeted vaccination. And we need all partners and donors to support the global strategic plan for preparedness and response to MPOX, by providing the necessary $147 million," he urged.

MPOX, caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox, is characterized primarily by a high fever and the appearance of skin lesions called vesicles. First identified in the DRC (then Zaire) in 1970, the disease remained confined to around ten African countries for a long time.

It has two subtypes, clade 1 and clade 2. The virus, long endemic in Central Africa, crossed borders in May 2022 when clade 2 spread across the world, primarily affecting men who have sex with men.