The World Health Organization (WHO) declared monkey pox outbreak a global emergency on Saturday (July 23).
The news comes when the The total number of cases in the UK exceeds 2,000.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the risk of monkeypox was moderate worldwide, except in Europe, where the WHO considered the risk high.
But what exactly is a global health emergency and has one been declared before?
Here’s everything you need to know.
What is a global health emergency?
A global emergency is the WHO’s highest alert level.
Officially known as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), the status marks an escalation in response to the disease.
The designation means that the WHO now considers the outbreak a sufficiently significant threat to global health that urgent action is required to stop it from spreading further and possibly escalating into a pandemic.
The statement is intended to trigger international responses and may lead to funding to work together on: share vaccines and treatments.
Under the International Health Regulations (IHR) of 2005, states have a legal obligation to respond promptly to a PHEIC.
Before a global health emergency is declared, the WHO Emergency Committee meets to weigh the evidence and make a recommendation to the Director General.
The committee met last month to discuss declaring monkeypox a global emergency, but decided against it.
At that time, there were 3,040 cases in 47 countries.
Since then, however, the situation has rapidly accelerated: there are now 16,000 cases in 75 countries, with five recorded deaths.
Meeting again on Thursday, they were divided on the decision, with nine members opposing and six in favor of the statement – prompting 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 don’t understand enough about.
“For all these reasons, I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern.”
Has a global health emergency been declared before?
Yes, the WHO has declared six more global health emergencies, the first being swine flu in 2009.
The designations are temporary and must be reviewed every three months.
All WHO global health emergencies
The emergencies are as follows:
- 2022 – monkeypox
- 2020 – COVID-19
- 2018-20 – Kivu Ebola
- 2016 – Zika virus
- 2014 – ebola
- 2014 – Polio
- 2009 – swine flu
Covid-19 was declared a global emergency on January 30, 2020.
At that time, 170 people had died from the virus in China, with 98 cases in 18 countries outside the country.
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