WHO to reconvene Monkeypox emergency panel on July 21

SWITZERLAND: The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Thursday it would reconvene its expert Monkeypox committee on July 21 to decide whether the outbreak constitutes a global health emergency.

A second meeting of the WHO’s Emergency Committee on Monkeypox will be held, with the UN health agency now aware of 9,200 cases in 63 countries at the last update issued Tuesday. A surge in Monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.

On June 23, the WHO convened an Emergency Committee of experts to decide if Monkeypox constitutes a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — the highest alarm that the WHO can sound.

But a majority advised the WHO’s Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that the situation, at that point, had not met that threshold.

Now a second meeting will be held, with case numbers rising. “The Emergency Committee will provide its views to the WHO Director General on whether the event constitutes a PHEIC,” the UN health agency said in a statement. The committee will look at trends, how effective the counter-measures are and make recommendations for what countries and communities should do to tackle the outbreak, Tedros told a press conference on Tuesday.

There have been six PHEIC declarations since 2009, the last being for COVID-19 in 2020 — though the sluggish global response to the alarm bell still rankles at the WHO’s headquarters. – THE BANGKOK POST