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The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the ongoing Mpox outbreak in Africa a global health emergency.

The WHO convened its emergency committee because it feared that a more deadly strain of the virus, clade Ib, had reached four previously unaffected countries. Countries in Africa. This tribe was previously restricted to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The independent experts met virtually on Wednesday to advise WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the severity of the outbreak. Following that consultation, he announced that he had declared an international public health emergency – the highest level of alert under international health law.

“The discovery and rapid spread of a new Mpox group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, its discovery in neighboring countries where Mpox has not been previously reported, and the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond are very concerning,” he said.

“The Emergency Committee met and informed me that the situation constituted an international health emergency. I accepted this advice.”

This status, also known as PHEIC, is awarded by the WHO for “extraordinary events” that pose a risk to the public health of other countries through the international spread of disease. These outbreaks may require a coordinated international response, according to the organization.

“There was a consensus that the current outbreak of Mpox, the increase in Mpox cases, is an extraordinary event,” said committee chair Dimie Ogoina. “What we are seeing in Africa is just the tip of the iceberg. … We are not recognizing this burden of Mpox or we do not have the full picture of it.”

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared the outbreak a public health emergency of continental concern on Tuesday, the first such declaration by the agency since its creation in 2017.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 17,000 MPOX cases and over 500 deaths have been reported in 13 African countries, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which classifies the outbreak as a “very high-risk event.” The highest number of cases – more than 14,000 – is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 96% of confirmed cases were reported this month.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a viral disease that can easily spread between humans and from infected animals. According to the WHO, it can spread through close contact such as touching, kissing or sex, as well as through contaminated materials such as sheets, clothing and needles. Symptoms include fever, painful rash, headache, muscle and back pain, low energy and enlarged lymph nodes.

The disease was prevalent mainly in Central and West Africa for decades, but began to spread in Europe and North America in 2022. The WHO had already declared the spread of Mpox a global health emergency in July 2022 and lifted this declaration in May 2023.

Mpox is characterized by two genetic clades, I and II. A clade is a broad grouping of viruses that has evolved over decades and represents a genetically and clinically distinct group. Clade II was responsible for the 2022 outbreak, but clade Ib causes more severe disease.

“But we are not dealing with an outbreak of a single clade; we are dealing with multiple outbreaks of different clades in different countries with different transmission routes and different risk levels,” Tedros clarified.

No cases of the Impox clade have been identified in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the situation is continuing to be monitored and the U.S. government has offered funding, assistance and vaccines to WHO and the Democratic Republic of Congo to support efforts in Africa.

The CDC last week recommended that people in the U.S. who are exposed to or at high risk for the Mpox virus should get vaccinated.

WHO officials said last week that the virus can be “quite easily contained if we do the right things at the right time.” They also called for international cooperation in funding and organizing efforts to contain the outbreak and to fund research to better understand clade Ib and its spread.

“It is clear that a coordinated international response is essential to stop these outbreaks and save lives,” Tedros said on Wednesday.

The organization has approved the emergency authorization process for both Mpox vaccines and developed a regional response plan requiring $15 million, of which $1.5 million was released from the WHO Emergency Response Fund.

Half a million doses of the vaccine are in stock and another 2.4 million could potentially be produced by the end of the year, said Tim Nguyen of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria will be the first to receive these vaccines, added the director of the African Regional Emergency Response, Dr. Abdou Salam Gueye.

The organization stressed that vaccines are only part of the response; containing the spread also requires increased surveillance, diagnostics and research to close “gaps in understanding.”

“We can stop the transmission of Mpox through concerted efforts using multiple approaches,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, Director of WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention.

“There is a lot of uncertainty. … We have an opportunity now to really use this time and support our member states in supporting the research that is needed to understand this.”