Why is Mpox an emergency again and how worried should I be?

The World Health Organization has declared an outbreak of mumps, a viral infection spread through close contact, a global health emergency for the second time in two years.

Here’s what that means.

WHAT IS A GLOBAL HEALTH EMERGENCY?

A “public health emergency of international concern” or PHEIC is the WHO’s highest form of alert. It is announced when diseases spread in new or unusual ways and aims to boost international cooperation and funding to combat an outbreak. The WHO statement follows a similar label from the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this week.

WHY IS MPOX AN EMERGENCY AGAIN?

Two years ago, the WHO declared mpox an emergency when a form of the disease began to spread globally, mostly among men who have sex with men. This outbreak was brought under control after behavior change and safe sex practices, plus vaccines, helped people at risk to protect themselves in many countries.

But mpox has been a public health problem in parts of Africa for decades. The first human case was in the Congo in 1970 and there have been outbreaks ever since.

The current outbreak, Congo’s worst ever, has seen 27,000 cases and more than 1,100 deaths since January 2023, mostly among children. The disease causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions and is usually mild but can kill. Children, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, are all at higher risk of complications.

Two strains of mpox are now spreading in the country: the endemic form of the virus, as well as a new branch.

This new form of the virus has caused worldwide concern because it appears to be spreading quickly and little is known about it. It is transmitted through sexual contact as well as other close contacts – such as among children in displacement camps in parts of the Congo – and has now moved from eastern Congo to Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Kenya.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

Scientists hope the emergency declarations will speed up efforts to get more medical tools and funding into Congo to help authorities there tackle the outbreak. Better surveillance is needed to study the virus and help stop its spread.

But in 2022, a WHO appeal for $34 million to fight mpox was not taken up by donors, and there was huge inequity in who had access to vaccine doses. African countries did not have access to the two injections used in the global outbreak, made by Bavarian Nordic and KM Biologics. Two years later, that remains, although there are efforts to change that, the WHO said on Wednesday, as it appealed for donations of doses from countries with stockpiles. The Africa CDC also said it has a plan to secure the doses, without elaborating, but stocks are currently limited.

HOW MANY TURNS SHOULD THERE BE?

Mpox is a significant health problem that kills some of the world’s most vulnerable people, including children, and a form of it is possibly spreading in new ways and to new parts of Africa.

But it’s not COVID-19. So far, there is no evidence that it spreads easily through the air like COVID, and there are tools that have been shown to work to stop the spread and help those at risk.

The challenge now, which the emergency declarations aim to highlight, is to ensure that these tools reach those who need them most, in Congo and neighboring countries.

(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby, Editing by Crispian Balmer)