Worrying variant WHO declares global emergency due to Mpox virus
In 2022, the Mpox outbreaks were well under control worldwide. Now there is a new, worrying variant. The World Health Organization (WHO) is responding.
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- Highest alert level: The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a "public health emergency of international concern" (PHEIC) due to a new variant of the Mpox virus in Africa.
- It believes there is a risk that Mpox could spread internationally again after 2022 and pose a health risk to several countries.
- The emergency declaration has no specific consequences. Rather, it is intended to alert authorities around the world so that they can prepare for possible outbreaks.
- The WHO's concerns relate, among other things, to a new variant of the virus that was discovered in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the end of 2023.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has activated its highest alert level due to a new variant of the Mpox virus in Africa. It has declared a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern" (PHEIC).
It believes there is a risk that Mpox could spread internationally again after 2022 and pose a health risk to several countries. The WHO followed the recommendation of independent Mpox experts who had met in the so-called Emergency Committee at the invitation of the WHO, as WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. The emergency declaration has no concrete consequences. Rather, it is intended to alert authorities around the world so that they can prepare for possible outbreaks.
New variant discovered
The WHO's concern relates, among other things, to a new virus variant that was discovered in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the end of 2023. It is a subline of Mpox clade I (Roman one), called Ib. It could be more contagious than previous variants and trigger more severe courses of the disease. Detailed studies on this are still pending. In recent weeks, clade I Mpox has also been discovered for the first time in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya.
At the end of July, the European health authority ECDC assessed the risk of the new variant spreading in Europe as "very low". According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), there are no known cases of clade I in Germany to date.
Mpox used to be called monkeypox because it was first detected in monkeys by chance. The WHO decided on the new name because they do not name diseases after animals or countries in which they are discovered in order to prevent discrimination.
Vaccine protects against classic smallpox
The virus is related to the classic smallpox virus (variola virus). It mainly causes a skin rash, but also fever and can be fatal, especially for children. The vaccine against the smallpox virus also protects against infection with the Mpox virus.
The African health authority CDC has already reported more than 14,000 suspected cases and more than 500 deaths from the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring countries this year. Only a small proportion of these have been confirmed in the laboratory. However, it has already declared an emergency for Africa. This will allow more funds to be mobilized to help countries contain the disease. The WHO receives fewer than 1000 laboratory-confirmed cases a month from all over the world. It assumes that not all cases are detected due to a lack of testing capacity.
Outbreak quickly under control in 2022
The WHO had already declared an emergency due to Mpox in July 2022. At that time, there were cases in more than 60 countries, including Germany. The infections fell to clade II, which causes less severe courses of the disease. The emergency was lifted in May 2023 because the outbreaks had also been brought under control with vaccines in most countries. In Africa and other countries in the global South, however, the supply of vaccines is still
dpa
