MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

WHO Director urges governments to work together against mpox

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said efforts were underway to facilitate access to vaccines against this disease formerly known as monkeypox

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Friday estimated that with proper “government leadership, the mpox outbreak can be over in six months.”

The outbreak of mpox (monkeypox) with its epicenter in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where some 18,000 cases and at least 629 deaths have been reported this year, “can end in the next six months if there is leadership from governments,” the official pointed out.

“Although what the [Democratic Republic of Congo] DRC needs more than anything else is a political solution to the perennial insecurity,” added the United Nations sanitarist regarding the African country where the malady has caused 629 deaths so far and were some 18,000 cases have been reported. After returning from there, Tedros also recalled that some 5,000 cases had been recorded in the violence-torn eastern provinces of North and South Kivu.

On Aug. 14, the WHO declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) given the rapid spread of a new strain of the virus (known as clade 1b). In addition to the DRC, other cases have been confirmed in Argentina, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Sweden, and Thailand.

The UN official also said efforts were underway to facilitate access to vaccines against this disease while urging a speedier distribution of diagnostic tests.

“The outbreak has occurred in one of the poorest and most insecure areas of DRC, which complicates the response, but hundreds of WHO workers are on the ground in that and other affected countries to stop transmission and get the outbreak under control,” Tedros also mentioned while forecasting that the first shipment of vaccines should arrive in the DRC shortly.

Symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, and blisters on the face, chest, hands, and genitals, which can be mistaken at first as smallpox. The disease is typically spread through skin-to-skin contact. The WHO also said it was working on awareness campaigns to keep people from catching the virus.