GENEVA— There have been more than 18,000 cases of monkeypox reported globally from 78 countries, with the majority in Europe, the World Health Organization said.
The WHO declared the outbreak a global health emergency on Saturday.
Around 10 per cent of patients have been hospitalised in the current outbreak and five have died, all of them in Africa, the WHO said.
So far, 98 per cent of cases outside the countries in Africa where the virus is endemic have been reported in men who have sex with men, the WHO said.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged that group to consider reducing the numbers of new sexual partners and swapping contact details with any new partners.
“This is an outbreak that can be stopped … The best way to do that is to reduce the risk of exposure,” Tedros told a news conference. “That means making safe choices for yourself and others.”
Monkeypox is in the process of being renamed, to avoid the name being “weaponised” or used in a racist way, WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said.
The UN agency is recommending vaccination for high-risk groups, including healthcare workers, and men who have sex with men with multiple sexual partners.
Tedros said there were about 16 million doses of approved vaccine available, but only in bulk, so it would take several months to get them into vials.
The WHO is urging countries with stockpiles to share vaccine while supply is constrained, he added. It estimates that between 5 million and 10 million doses of vaccine will be needed to protect all high-risk groups.
Meanwhile, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said that nearly 5,300 monkeypox cases have so far been reported across 18 countries and territories in the Americas, with the majority in the United States, Canada and Brazil.
PAHO’s deputy director Mary Lou Valdez told a press conference that almost all cases continue to be reported among men who have sex with men between the ages of 25 and 45, but warned that anyone can get the disease regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.
PAHO’s Interim Assistant Director Dr Marcos Espinal said that about 10 countries in the Americas have already said they were interested in purchasing a vaccine against monkeypox, but did not disclose which nations.
PAHO also disclosed it is “well advanced” in talks with a producer to buy third generation vaccines against the disease and that it expects some supply to arrive this year, though in limited amounts.
Even so, the organisation’s chief of infectious hazard management unit, Andrea Vicari, said the risk from monkeypox for the general population remained “very low” and that a mass vaccination campaign was not recommended at the moment.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK