Although monkeypox is not as transmissible or dangerous as COVID, scientists say, there needs to be clearer guidance on how an infected person should isolate themselves, more explicit advice on how to protect people who are at risk, and improved testing and contact tracing.
“If this becomes endemic (in more countries), we will have another nasty disease and a lot of hard decisions to make,” said Isabelle Eckerle, a professor at the Geneva Center for Emerging Viral Diseases in Switzerland.
The WHO is studying whether the outbreak should be assessed as a possible public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), an official told Reuters. A WHO determination that an outbreak constitutes a global health emergency – as was the case with COVID or Ebola – would help speed up analysis and funding to contain the disease.
“It’s always being considered, but there’s still no (monkeypox) emergency committee,” Mike Ryan, director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said on the sidelines of the body’s annual meeting in Geneva.
However, experts say the WHO is unlikely to come to that conclusion any time soon, because monkeypox is a known threat and there are tools to combat it. Debating whether to create an emergency committee, the body that recommends declaring a PHEIC, is just part of the agency’s routine response, the WHO representatives said.
Eckerle called on the WHO to encourage countries to put in place more coordinated and stringent isolation measures, saying he is concerned that the virus being said to be mild, as well as the availability of vaccines and treatments in some countries, “could give lead to lazy behavior on the part of public health authorities.