WHO director declares monkeypox a global health emergency
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Around 98 percent of cases have been reported in homosexual men.
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(LifeSiteNews) – World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on Saturday that he has declared the international monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency.
“I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern,” the United Nations health agency chief said at a press conference. “WHO’s assessment is that the risk of monkeypox is moderate globally and in all regions, except in the European region where we assess the risk as high,” he added.
READ: ‘Homophobic’: UN attacks journalists reporting on LGBT ‘sex party’ where monkeypox spread
Since May, more than 16,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox and five deaths have been reported in 75 countries, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), up from around 3,000 cases reported by late June.
Tedros noted that he acted as a “tiebreaker” after a WHO expert committee on Thursday failed to reach a consensus about whether the outbreak constitutes a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” the U.N. agency’s highest alert.
It was the first time that a WHO chief unilaterally declared a global emergency, the Associated Press reported.
‘Concentrated among men who have sex with men’
Tedros also acknowledged that the outbreak remains concentrated almost entirely among homosexual males.
