WHO has given the designation to six disease outbreaks since 2007, including Covid-19, Ebola, Zika, and the H1N1 flu.
The World Health Organization announced Saturday that the global monkeypox outbreak does not constitute a public health emergency of international concern for the time being,
WHO convened an emergency committee on Thursday to discuss whether the designation, which has been given to just six disease outbreaks since 2007, was appropriate for monkeypox.
"The emergency committee shared serious concerns about the scale and speed of the current outbreak," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
"Overall, in the report, they advised me that at this moment the event does not constitute a public health emergency of international concern, which is the highest level of alert WHO can issue," he added.
WHO said in another statement that the Director-General agreed with the committee's advice, though a few members of the committee "expressed differing views."
WHO reserves this kind of emergency alert for “serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected” events that constitute a health risk to more than one country and may require an immediate, coordinated international response. The organization previously gave the designation to Covid-19, as well as Ebola, Zika, H1N1 flu and polio.
More than 4,000 monkeypox cases have been reported globally across 47 countries and territories since the start of May, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. alone had recorded more than 200 cases across 25 states and Washington, D.C. as of Friday.
Previously, monkeypox was largely confined to Africa, where it is endemic in 11 countries. Most monkeypox infections have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which saw more than 1,200 cases from January to May, according to WHO.
The version of the virus spreading internationally, the West African strain, has a fatality rate of 1%. No deaths outside of Africa have been reported in connection to the current outbreak. The other, the Congo Basin strain, has a fatality rate of 10%.