The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the multi-country outbreak of Monkeypox as a global public health emergency that requires all rapt attention.
The declaration was contained in a press release announcing the outcome of the second meeting of the International Health Regulation (2005) (IHR) Emergency Committee held at the weekend.
According to the WHO Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, this recognition of the complexities and uncertainties associated with this public health event necessitated the decision. To arrive at the decision, the committee considered their various views and opinions on the disease as well as other factors in line with the IHR.
The WHO Director-General also considered the views of the committee in issuing the set of temporary recommendations. These temporary recommendations apply to different groups of states parties, based on their epidemiological situation, patterns of transmission and capacities.
The temporary recommendations classified each state party, at any given point in time, into four types of groups- those with no history of monkeypox in the human population or not having detected a case of monkeypox for over 21 days, belong to a group.
While state parties, with recently imported cases of monkeypox in the human population and/or otherwise experiencing human-to-human transmission of monkeypox virus, in key population groups and communities are at high risk of exposure, belong to another group. Others are classified into other groups.
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