The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued its highest level of global health alert in the face of a resurgence of monkeypox cases in Africa.
Today, the Emergency Committee met and advised me that in their view, the situation constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference.
This is a situation that should concern us all, he said.
Only the head of the WHO can declare a public health emergency of international concern, on the advice of an ad hoc committee of experts.
All 15 members of the committee who attended the meeting agreed that the criteria were met to declare an international public health emergency, the chair of the expert group, Dimie Ogoina, told reporters.
The WHO had already taken such a decision in 2022, when an outbreak of monkeypox spread across the world.
But the current epidemic, which started in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is currently contained in Africa, has its own specificities: firstly, it is a more contagious and dangerous virus. It is caused by clade 1 (a group of influenza viruses) and an even more dangerous variant, clade 1b. Its mortality rate is estimated at 3.6%.
On Tuesday, the African Union’s health agency declared a public health emergency, its highest level of alert, over the growing monkeypox outbreak on the continent, issuing a clear call for action to halt its spread.
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Mathieu Papillon’s report
A total of 38,465 cases of the disease, formerly known as monkeypox, have been reported in 16 African countries since January 2022, with 1,456 deaths, including a 160% increase in cases in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to data released last week by the health agency Africa CDC.
WHO is committed to coordinating the global response in the coming days and weeks, working closely with each affected country and leveraging its presence on the ground, to prevent transmission, treat those infected and save lives, Dr Tedros told reporters.
At the opening of the meeting, he warned: We are facing multiple epidemics with different clades in different countries, with different modes of transmission and different levels of risk.
Symptoms of Monkey Pox
Monkeypox is a viral disease that spreads from animals to humans, but is also transmitted through close physical contact with a person infected with the virus.
Clade 1b causes rashes all over the body, while previous strains were characterized by localized rashes and lesions on the mouth, face, or genitals.
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A doctor examines the skin lesions on the ear of a child with monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in July.
Photo: Reuters / Arlette Bashizi
Monkeypox was first discovered in humans in 1970 in what is now the DRC (formerly Zaire), with the spread of subtype clade 1, since then mainly limited to countries in western and central Africa, with patients generally being contaminated by infected animals.
In 2022, a global epidemic, carried by subtype clade 2, spread to about 100 countries where the disease was not endemic, affecting mainly homosexual and bisexual men.
The WHO then declared maximum alert in July 2022 in the face of this surge in cases worldwide, then lifted it less than a year later, in May 2023. The epidemic caused some 140 deaths out of around 90,000 cases.
Over the past month, approximately 90 cases of clade 1b have been reported in four countries neighboring the DRC that had never previously reported [variole simienne] previously: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, Dr Tedros reminded the emergency committee.
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A man fills a syringe with monkeypox vaccine.
Photo: Reuters / Christinne Scham
Declaring a global high alert may allow the WHO to access funds for emergency response. For the rest, the same priorities remain: investing in diagnostic capacity, public health response, treatment support and vaccination. This will not be easy, according to Marion Koopmans, a professor at the Dutch Erasmus University Rotterdam.
