New strain of mpox spreading in Africa prompts WHO to declare public health emergency

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced a declaration of mpox as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on Wednesday

“Today, the Emergency Committee convened and informed me that, in its opinion, the situation represents a public health emergency of international concern. I have agreed with that guidance,” stated WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a media briefing on Wednesday.

PHEICs were most recently declared for the COVID-19 pandemic and the prior mpox outbreak of 2022.

Even though mpox is indigenous to regions of Central and Western Africa, instances have been escalating significantly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

So far this year, there have been over 14,000 mpox instances and 524 fatalities documented in the DRC, as per the WHO.

There exist two variations of mpox: clade I and clade II, with clade approximately indicating they are descended from a shared ancestor organism. Although clade I has triggered minor, localized outbreaks in the DRC for years, researchers recognized a clade I variant, identified as clade Ib, which appears to primarily spread through sexual contact and is believed to be the cause of the outbreak in the DRC.

Tedros mentioned that the discovery of clade Ib in neighboring African nations that had never previously reported mpox cases – such as Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda – prompted him to organize a meeting of the WHO’s emergency committee.

“The identification and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern DRC, its detection in neighboring nations that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further dissemination within Africa and beyond is extremely concerning,” Tedros expressed during the briefing.

On Monday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) – the top health organization on the continent – stated mpox as a public health emergency of continental security (PHECS) – the premier such statement since the Africa CDC’s establishment in 2017, as per the organization.

Simultaneously, the WHO issued a report revealing a total of 934 new laboratory confirmed instances of mpox and four fatalities from 26 countries in the month of June, “demonstrating ongoing transmission of mpox across the globe.”

In the U.S, there have been 1,594 instances of mpox reported up to now this year, in accordance with information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This is more than double the amount of national cases seen at the same point last year but notably lower than those observed during a U.S. mpox outbreak in 2022, CDC data indicates.