The World Health Organisation has declared monkeypox a global concern since its outbreak in more than seventy countries.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus decided to inform the world about this disease outbreak despite a lack of consensus among experts serving in United Nation health agency’s committee.
Giving the briefing in Geneva, Tedros gave a confirmation that the committee did not reach a common agreement with nine members against six who supported the declaration.
“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission about which we understand too little and which meets criteria in international health regulations.” Tedros said.
“I know this has not been an easy or straightforward process and that there are divergent views among the members of the committee”. He added.
Governments are advised to raise awareness among doctors and hospitals, take protective measures in suspected cases and inform the population on how they can protect themselves from this disease.
Tedros said that more than 16,000 cases have been reported from 75 countries and five people have died from the disease.
Monkey pox has been known to affect pats of Central and West Africa in the last years but it was not known it would spread wide among people until May when experts detected the epidemic in Europe and North America.
International coordination is needed in order to unlock funding and global efforts to collaborate on sharing vaccines and treatments.
To this present day, monkeypox deaths have been only reported in Africa, and a more dangerous form of the virus is spreading at a faster rate mainly in Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Monkeypox is spreading in Africa mainly through infected wild animals like rodents. A world-wide testing should be conducted to counter the spread of this disease in areas it has not affected.