The Department of Health (DoH) on Thursday urged the public to be vigilant following the declaration of the World Health Organization (WHO) of mpox as a global public health emergency for the second time since 2022.

This comes following an outbreak of the viral infection in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to neighboring countries.

"Why did we declare or why did the WHO declare a so-called public health emergency of international concern? Because the whole world, countries all over the world, do not want it to spread outside the area where there's an outbreak," DoH Assistant Secretary Albert Domingo explained during a televised briefing.

"The way for this is for our countries to unite in helping the African continent," he added.

The Health official told the public to be alert and be careful to not get infected with mpox.

"We always say in public health, we need to be alert, just worry enough and not too much. Why? Because we need to know what we should do so we could not get infected, so we could always take care of ourselves," Domingo said.