WHO declares highest alert over monkeypox outbreak

• What do we need to do in the face of the monkeypox outbreak?
• The WHO has declared it’s highest alert for monkeypox.
• There is a vaccine for monkeypox.

The monkeypox outbreak has expanded to 74 countries with 16,836 cases. It is an «extraordinary» situation that qualifies as an international emergency, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said over the weekend.

According to El Universal, the designation does not necessarily mean that a disease is particularly communicable or lethal. To date, monkeypox deaths have only been reported in Africa, where a more dangerous version of the virus is spreading, mainly in Nigeria and the Congo.

What does the emergency alert say?

With this there are now three international health emergencies affecting the world: There’s the one declared at the end of January 2020 due to Covid and the one activated in 2017 for serious polio outbreaks in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, according to El Universal. What does the emergency declaration say?

The declaration includes different types of recommendations for countries depending on whether or not they have confirmed cases and if there are already sources of local transmission. For nations with recent cases and local transmission between humans (Spain among them), the international emergency calls for «a coordinated response to stop transmission between vulnerable groups,» said Tedros. Filed Under: Monkeypox Recommendations

Recommendations for monkeypox health emergency

The declaration has recommendations for, “any individual: with signs and symptoms consistent with infection by the monkeypox virus; or considered a suspected, probable or confirmed case of monkeypox by the jurisdictional health authorities,” El Universal reported.

El Universal explained that whoever has been identified as a contact of a case of monkeypox and, therefore, is subject to health control, must avoid taking any trips, even international, until it is determined that they no longer constitute a risk to public health. Filed Under: Monkeypox Recommendations

What if you have the smallpox vaccine?

Exemptions include anyone who needs to travel to seek urgent medical care or flee life-threatening situations such as conflict or natural disasters. Contacts for whom pre-departure arrangements are agreed upon by the appropriate sub-national health authorities to ensure continuity of health monitoring or, in the case of international travel, national health authorities.

What if you have the smallpox vaccine? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that, “Previous smallpox vaccination provides protection, but not necessarily lifelong. During the monkeypox outbreak of 2003 and during the current outbreak, several people infected with monkeypox had been vaccinated against smallpox decades before.” Filed Under: Monkeypox Recommendations

The European Medicines Agency said it has approved the use of a monkeypox vaccine

They stated that, «In response to an outbreak, vaccines and other medical measures would also be administered to eligible persons who were previously vaccinated against smallpox.» The European Medicines Agency said it approved a human smallpox vaccine for use against monkeypox.

Although monkeypox has been established in parts of central and western Africa for decades, it was not known to cause large outbreaks beyond the continent or to spread widely among people until May, when authorities detected dozens of outbreaks in Europe, North America and elsewhere, noted the AP. Filed Under: Monkeypox Recommendations