The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a state of emergency on Wednesday over the rapid spread of Monkeypox across Africa.
This is the second time in three years that the W.H.O. has designated an mpox epidemic as a global emergency. It previously did so in July 2022. That outbreak went on to affect nearly 100,000 people, primarily gay and bisexual men, in 116 countries, and killed about 200 people. However, women and children under 15 are mostly at risk.
Since the beginning of this year, the Democratic Republic of Congo alone has reported 15,600 mpox cases and 537 deaths.
“The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern D.R.C., its detection in neighboring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general.
The outbreak has spread through 13 countries in Africa, including a few that had never reported mpox cases before.
“It’s in the interests of the countries, of the continent and of the world to get our arms around this and stop transmission as soon as we can,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, the executive director for preparedness and response at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a nonprofit that finances vaccine development.
Mpox is transmitted through close contact, such as sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.
In July 2022 the milder Clade 2 strain of mpox spread to nearly 100 countries, including some in Europe and Asia.
It spread rapidly, and there were more than 87,000 cases and 140 deaths reported during that outbreak, according to a WHO count.
The head of the organization, Jean Kaseya, warned that this current outbreak could move like the coronavirus pandemic if steps are not taken to contain it.
“We must be proactive and aggressive in our efforts to contain and eliminate this threat,” he said.
