Probably the last thing you want to hear is that the World Health Organization has declared another disease – this time monkeypox – to be a public health emergency of international concern. Monkeypox is a virus similar to smallpox that causes fever, swollen lymph nodes and distinctive rashes on the face, palms, the soles of the feet and genitalia. Gay and bisexual men are most at risk, as are other men who have sex with men. It can be a serious disease with the case fatality rate around 3-6%, although the vast majority of people manage to recover at home without hospitalisation or medication.
This WHO declaration is unusual in that the organisation’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, overruled a split emergency committee (an expert advisory committee from around the world in virology, epidemiology and public health) to insist that the loudest alarm bell should be rung. His justification was: “We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly, through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little and which meets the criteria in the international health regulations.”
