have already been notified more than 6,000 cases of monkeypox in 58 countries in the current outbreak, the World Health Organization warned on Wednesday.
The UN agency will reconvene a meeting of the committee that will advise on whether to declare the outbreak as global health emergencythe WHO’s highest alert level, in the week beginning on or before July 18, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference from Geneva.
At its previous meeting, held on June 27, the committee decided that the outbreak, in which cases have increased both in African countries where it usually spreads and globally, it was not yet a health emergency.
“I still worry the magnitude and spread of the virus around the world,” Tedros said, adding that a lack of testing meant there were likely many more unreported cases.
Around the 80% of cases occur in Europehe pointed.
Monkeypox, a normally mild viral infection that causes flu-like symptoms and skin lesionsis spreading around the world since the beginning of May.
The mortality rate in previous outbreaks of the strain that is currently spreading has been around 1%.
With information from Reuters
Reference-aristeguinoticias.com
