Pandemic or Epidemic: WHO Monkeypox Announcement Set for Today

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Pandemic or Epidemic: WHO Monkeypox Announcement Set for Today

Newsweek | June 23, 2022


The World Health Organization (WHO) is to determine whether monkeypox is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on Thursday.

WHO body the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee will convene experts at the meeting—which will take place at 12 p.m. CEST in Geneva, Switzerland—to discuss the rapidly spreading virus.

The virus, only seen in areas of central and western Africa before now, has not yet caused any deaths in newly affected countries. However, people have died in previous outbreaks.

If the outbreak is declared an emergency of international concern, it will require an internationally coordinated response to stop the spread.

PHEIC status is only ever considered when a disease becomes "serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected."

In this combination image, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivers a speech on the opening day of 75th World Health Assembly of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva on May 22, 2022 and an inset of the Monkeypox virus. iStock / Getty Images

Could Monkeypox Be Declared a Pandemic?

Currently, many have drawn their own conclusions that the monkeypox outbreak is at an epidemic level. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an epidemic is an unexpected rise in cases of a disease within a specific geographic area.

However a question on everyone's minds remains: could it become as serious as COVID-19, and be declared a pandemic?

Some experts believe that this current outbreak is already bordering on pandemic level.

Epidemiologist and health economist Eric Feigl-Ding said on Twitter on June 22 that there has been another "world record" of daily cases.

"It is now a clear and present danger as monkeypox is nearing a potential pandemic. This is an emergency," Feigl-Ding wrote.

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The World Health Network also issued a statement on June 22, independently declaring the monkeypox spread a pandemic, "given that there are now 3,417 confirmed monkeypox cases reported across 58 countries and the outbreak is rapidly expanding across multiple continents."

For an outbreak to be declared a pandemic, the WHO must confirm that it is a "worldwide spread" of a disease. The WHO must determine that the monkeypox outbreak is severely affecting a worldwide distribution of people.

Dr. Vincent Hsu, epidemiologist and executive director of infection prevention for AdventHealth, told Newsweek that he believes monkeypox is an emergency, but he does not believe it will rise to a "COVID-19-like pandemic."

However, he said that immediate action is needed.

"Part of the challenges of controlling monkeypox is that early symptoms are non-specific, such as fever, malaise or headache. The characteristic rash usually doesn't appear until later in the disease course, so it may be easy to spread without knowing you have monkeypox. Controlling the spread requires both adequate public health resources in addition to a concerted and visible messaging campaign to health care providers and to the general public, which, in my view, has been woefully inadequate," he said.

"The public must be informed about how the disease is spread from person to person, and the need to seek care and get tested once it is suspected so that public health can do appropriate contact tracing.

"Although the disease will not rise to a COVID-19-like pandemic and the risk to the public currently remains low, if we don't redouble efforts to ensure the messaging and public health resources are in place, monkeypox is likely to remain in our communities. We don't need another infectious disease to worry about."

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World Health Network (WHN) declares monkeypox a pandemic

Insider Paper [adapted] | June 23, 2022

The World Health Network (WHN), a global collaboration of scientific and citizen teams, declared the current monkeypox outbreak, which has infected 3,417 people in 42 countries, a pandemic on Thursday.

The declaration comes ahead of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) meeting on Thursday to decide on the designation of the monkeypox outbreak.

According to the World Health Organization, there are now 3,417 confirmed monkeypox cases reported across 58 countries, and the outbreak is rapidly spreading across multiple continents, according to Monkeypoxmeter, a website that tracks infection cases in real time.

The World Health Network has urged the WHO and national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take immediate action to prevent monkeypox from becoming a disaster.

It stated that, while death rates are much lower than for smallpox, unless global action is taken to stop the infection’s spread, millions will die and many will become blind or disabled.

“The WHO needs to urgently declare its own Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — the lessons of not declaring (Covid-19) a PHEIC immediately in early January 2020 should be remembered as a history lesson of what acting late on an epidemic can mean for the world,” said Eric Feigl-Ding, PhD, Epidemiologist and Health Economist, and co-founder of WHN, in a statement.

“There is no justification to wait for the monkeypox pandemic to grow further. The actions needed now only require clear public communication about symptoms, widely available testing, and contact tracing with very few quarantines. Any delay only makes the effort harder and the consequences more severe,” added Yaneer Bar-Yam, PhD, President of New England Complex System Institute and co-founder of WHN.

Until now, the majority of cases have been in adults, but any spread to children will result in much more severe cases and deaths. Animal infections, particularly rats and other rodents, but also pets, will make it much more difficult to stop. Passively waiting will result in these negative consequences with no compensatory benefit.

Monkeypox is a virus that has the potential to cause significant harm to the general public, including acute painful illness that may necessitate hospitalisation, as well as death, skin scarring, blindness, and other long-term disability. Children, pregnant women, and immunocompromised people are the most vulnerable to severe disease.

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Monkeypox not presently a global public health emergency: WHO

UN [emphasis mine] | 25 June 2022

The monkeypox outbreak does not currently constitute a global public health concern, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday, though “intense response efforts” are needed to control further spread.

The announcement comes two days after WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus convened an Emergency Committee on the disease, under the International Health Regulations (IHR), to address the rising caseload.

Deeply concerned about the #Monkeypox outbreak, which represents a serious, evolving threat. I convened an Emergency Committee. The experts advised that it currently doesn't constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. My statement: https://t.co/sZIlUSdoGM pic.twitter.com/puOwg4RFTX

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) June 25, 2022

“The WHO Director-General concurs with the advice offered by the IHR Emergency Committee regarding the multi-country monkeypox outbreak and, at present, does not determine that the event constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC),” the UN agency said in a statement.

The PHEIC declaration is the highest level of global alert, which currently applies only to the COVID-19 pandemic and polio.

Monkeypox, a rare viral disease, occurs primarily in tropical rainforest areas of Central and West Africa, though it is occasionally exported to other regions.

Since May, more than 3,000 cases have emerged in 47 countries, many of which have never previously reported the disease. The highest numbers are currently in Europe, and most cases are among men who have sex with men.

Read more here.