GENEVA The rapidly spreading monkeypox virus has a possibility to stop an official of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. “We do at this moment still believe that this outbreak of monkeypox can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups but time is going by and we all need to pull together to make that happen,” Rosamund Lewis, WHO Technical Lead on Monkeypox told reporters.
The outbreak is an emergency in the global health system which is the highest WHO levels of alert WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared on Saturday.
Its WHO label – which is a “public health emergency of international concern” is intended to prompt a coordinated global response. It also could allow funds to work together on sharing treatments and vaccines.
“WHO is currently working on the establishment of a global coordination system. In the moment, it’s something that’s in the process of being discussed,” Lewis said.
Primarily identified in monkeys the virus is transmitted by close contact with an affected person. This year, the disease has not been seen in other countries outside of Africa which is where it is the most prevalent.
However, reports of a small number instances in Britain in May, early on, suggested that the virus had spread to Europe.
This year, there’s reported more than 16,000 cases confirmed of monkeypox reported in over 75 nations. Lewis claimed that the actual number could be much greater. Five deaths in all, all in Africa and reported.