“An emergency of public health”: who maintains its alert by MPOX and asks “continuous international support”

“A public health emergency of international scope.” The World Health Organization said that the MPOX epidemic on the MPOX epidemic, which mainly affects Africa on Monday, June 9, which mainly requested “continuous international support.” The CEO of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “announced that Mpox’s outbreak continued to comply with the criteria of a public health emergency of the international scope” (USPPI), according to a press release.

The USPPI was until last year the highest alert level in front of an epidemic according to the International Health Regulations (RSI), a legally binding framework for its 196 states (WHO Member States, Liechtenstein and the Holy See). But the amendments adopted in June 2024 by the countries of the World Health Organization introduced a greater degree of alert: that of “emergency due to a pandemic.”

The decision to maintain the alert against the resurgence of MPOX follows the fourth meeting of the RSI emergency committee on June 5.

“Operating Difficulties”

This committee, although “acknowledged the progress made in the capacity to respond in certain countries,” the Director General informed that the event continued to constitute an USPPI, due to the continuous increase in the number of cases, even in Western Africa, and “the probable persecution of an insecure transmission in certain countries beyond the African continent,” explains the WHO.

“Persistent operational difficulties” to respond to the epidemic, “even in terms of surveillance and detection, as well as the lack of funds, hinder the priority of interventions and that continuous international support is necessary,” the organization continues.

The WHO chief declared this USPPI on August 14, 2024 against the meteoric propagation of the disease, previously known as the monkey variolo, in Africa and in particular in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (RDC). WHO had made the same decision in July 2022, when an MPOX epidemic had spread throughout the world, before lifting it in May 2023.

“Since the beginning of 2024, more than 37,000 confirmed cases of MPOX have been reported to WHO by 25 countries, including 125 deaths,” said Friday’s head to the emergency committee.

The RDC alone brings together 60% of the confirmed cases and 40% of the deaths, followed by Uganda, Burundi and Sierra Leone, which has experienced an increase in the number of cases since the beginning of this year. In addition to the confirmed cases, the Democratic Republic of the CONGO continues to inform between 2,000 and 3,000 suspicious cases every week.

“Strategic Vaccination”

From the meeting of the previous committee in February, seven other countries reported outbreaks for the first time: Albania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Macedonia del Norte, Sudan del Sur, Tanzania and Togo, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“We need strategic and specific vaccination. And we need all partners and donors to support the global strategic plan for MPOX, providing the necessary $ 147 million,” he asked.

Mpox, caused by a virus of the same family as that of smallpox, manifests mainly by a high fever and the appearance of skin lesions, called vesicles. First identified in the RDC in 1970 (then Zaire), the disease has been circumscribed for a long time to a dozen African countries.

It has two subtypes, clade 1 and clade 2. The virus, long endemic to central Africa, crossed the borders in May 2022 when clado 2 spread throughout the world, mainly affecting men with sex with men.