WHO may declare new, deadlier mpox outbreak an international emergency

A growing outbreak of mpox in Africa may soon prompt the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a public Health emergency of international concern.

So far, the multinational outbreak has been concentrated mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has reported more than 14,000 cases of mpox this year, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference Wednesday (Aug. 7).

The outbreak in the DRC has been underway since 2023, when the country reported about 12,600 suspected cases and 580 deaths from mpox between January and early December. That represented a major increase over previous years, when a median of only 3,770 suspected cases had been reported annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Now, "the number of cases reported in the first six months of this year [2024] match the number reported in all of last year and the virus has spread to previously unaffected provinces," Tedros said at the news conference. In addition, in the past month, 50 cases have been confirmed and more are suspected in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, which neighbor the DRC, he said.

Related: 'Mpox' is the new name for monkeypox, the WHO says

"In light of the spread of Mpox outside DRC, and the potential for further international spread within and outside Africa, I have decided to convene an Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations to advise me on whether the outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern," Tedros said. That committee will meet "as soon as possible," he added.

Mpox viruses are divided into multiple "clades" that differ in their deadliness. The clade that fueled the global mpox outbreak in 2022 and 2023, known as clade 2, had a case-fatality rate of around 0.2% during that outbreak.