The World Health Organization has said that monkeypox is not currently considered a global health emergency, despite concerns about the spread of the disease.
"I am very concerned about the spread of monkeypox, which is clearly an evolving threat to health, which I and my colleagues in the Secretariat are following closely," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The description of a "global emergency" currently applies only to the coronavirus epidemic, and the ongoing efforts to eradicate polio.
How is monkeypox transmitted, and are there groups most at risk?
Advice for people with monkeypox: Avoid pets
The Director-General of the Organization had convened a committee of experts, Thursday, to determine whether the current outbreak of monkeypox warrants the announcement of the highest levels of warning or not.
"The emergency committee agreed with the great concern about the scale and speed of the current spread," Ghebreyesus said.
Ghebreyesus explained that experts believe that the current situation "does not rise to the level of a public health emergency of international concern, which is the highest alert level of the World Health Organization."
More than 3,200 cases and a single death were confirmed in the last six weeks in 48 countries, where the disease does not usually spread, according to the World Health Organization.
So far, this year, 70 deaths and nearly 1,500 injuries have been reported in Central Africa.
Monkeypox is a viral disease that causes flu-like symptoms and skin sores.
There are two strains of the virus that causes monkeypox, the first is the West African strain, with a death rate of about one percent, and it has spread in Europe and other regions of the world.
The other strain, the Congo River Basin strain, has a death rate of about 10 percent, according to the World Health Organization.
There are treatment drugs and vaccines against the virus that causes this disease, but there is a shortage of them.
It is expected that the decisions of the World Health Organization will receive some criticism from experts who believe that the disease has met the conditions of a "global emergency."
However, others pointed out that the World Health Organization is in a difficult situation after the Covid-19 stage. The organization’s announcement in early 2020 regarding the Corona virus, which the organization saw as a threat to public health, was widely ignored by many governments, and it was not The position of governments changes only after the organization has used the term "pandemic".