World alert on mpox up

“I hope we’ve gotten over the idea that something happening somewhere far away can’t affect us. An infection anywhere is potentially an infection everywhere, and we’ve seen this come to bear many times.”

On Thursday, a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of international concern, a case of the newer strain of mpox was reported by Sweden, the first nation to do so outside Africa.

The declaration of a global health emergency by the WHO “means that this particular virus and the illnesses it causes have reached a level that is now at a much higher rate than it should be, and it’s starting to spill out of Central Africa, which means that we have to get our arms around it and try and contain it.”

The rapid rise of a newer, apparently more serious strain of monkeypox (mpox) in Africa which has caused an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and was detected likewise in neighboring countries that had never reported mpox cases before has prompted the WHO to declare on 14 August a global health emergency or, more specifically, a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).

A day after WHO declared a PHEIC, a case of the newer strain of mpox was reported by Sweden, the first nation to do so outside Africa.

“I hope that we’ve long gotten over the idea that something happening somewhere far away can’t affect us,” said University of California epidemiologist Anne Rimoin who has worked on mpox outbreaks in the DRC since 2002. “An infection anywhere is potentially an infection everywhere, and we’ve seen this come to bear many times.”

Rimoin’s concerns were echoed by Thomas Duszynski, epidemiology education director at Indiana University’s Fairbanks School of Public Health, who told US media that WHO’s declaration of a PHEIC “means that this particular virus and the illnesses it causes has reached a level that is now at a much higher rate than it should be, and it’s starting to spill out of the DRC, which means that we have to get our arms around it and try and contain it.”

The current mpox outbreak in the DRC is alarming epidemiologists because evidence indicates that the viral strain spreading in Central Africa is apparently more lethal than the strain that led to the global mpox outbreak in 2022 which has since infected over 95,000 people and killed close to 200.

Duszynski said that unlike the mpox in the 2022 outbreak, the current one is different because it involves a clade (strain) named clade lb that’s spreading faster and has a higher mortality rate.

Countries in Africa have already reported more confirmed and suspected mpox infections in 2024 than in all of 2023, that is, 17,500 since early January compared to about 15,000 in the previous year.

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern DRC, its detection in neighboring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for a further spread within Africa and beyond are very worrying.”

“It is clear that a coordinated international response is essential to stop these outbreaks and save lives,” he said.

The threat of a global spread of mpox has prompted the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to urge clinicians and the public to be alert for the virus.

Rimoin said that based on the speedy spread of mpox, WHO’s declaration of a global health emergency was justified. “We’ve learned a great deal about the speed with which this virus can spread,” she stressed.

The first human case of mpox was recorded in the DRC in 1970. In 2022, it spread around the world, including the Philippines. The first case detected here involved a 31-year-old Filipino arriving from overseas on 19 July 2022. He was found to have traveled to countries with documented mpox cases.

Three more cases were detected in August 2022 and five in 2023 – none of which were fatal.

Following WHO’s global health emergency declaration on Wednesday, the Department of Health said the country’s surveillance system has been placed on alert.

No border control system has yet been recommended but DoH Assistant Secretary Albert Domingo said the Bureau of Quarantine will be conducting interviews with passengers, particularly those departing for and arriving from countries in Africa.

We certainly hope these measures will suffice, for now.