Seoul Gazette - WHO chief lifts global mpox emergency

The World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of internation concern (PHEIC) in August 2024 after a two-pronged mpox epidemic broke out, primarily in the DRC.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lifted the status following Thursday's quarterly meeting of the UN health agency's emergency committee on the mpox outbreak.

"This decision is based on sustained declines in cases and deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in other affected countries, including Burundi, Sierra Leone and Uganda," he told a press conference.

Tedros said there was now a better understanding of what was driving transmission, while the most affected countries had enhanced their capacity to respond.

"Lifting the emergency declaration does not mean the threat is over, nor that our response will stop," said Tedros, noting that the situation remained a continental emergency in Africa.

"The possibility of continued flare-ups and new outbreaks remains," he said.

The African Union's public health watchdog said Thursday that "the current downward trends are not yet stable enough" to justify lifting the emergency at the continental level.

This year until the end of July, more than 34,000 confirmed cases worldwide have been reported to the WHO, including 138 deaths, from 84 countries. More than 15,000 of the cases were in the DRC.

- Call for vigilance -

Mpox is caused by a virus from the same family as smallpox. It can be transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed between people through close physical contact.

The disease, which was first detected in humans in 1970 in the DRC, then known as Zaire, causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions, and can be deadly.

Dimie Ogoina, who chaired the WHO's mpox emergency committee, said the case fatality rate had dropped in endemic regions from 3.6 percent to around one percent.

But he urged countries not to grow complacent about mpox and "throw away what we have gained" during the emergency.

Failure to invest in combatting mpox "will put the world as the risk of a resurgence", he said, calling for sustained vigilance.

The WHO said more than three million vaccine doses had been delivered to 12 countries, with just under one million doses administered.

Mpox has two subtypes: the more severe clade 1, and clade 2.

The virus, long endemic in central Africa, gained international prominence in May 2022 when clade 2 spread around the world, mostly affecting gay and bisexual men.

The WHO declared a global health emergency in July 2022, but thanks to vaccination and awareness drives that helped stem the spread, that declaration was lifted in May 2023.

A year later, however, a new epidemic broke out, with both the original clade 1a strain and a new strain, clade 1b, causing the WHO to declare a new PHEIC.

A PHEIC has only been declared eight times since 2009: over H1N1 swine flu, poliovirus, Zika virus, Covid-19, and twice over both Ebola and mpox.

I.Jang--SG