Kinkini Gupta
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Written By: Kinkini Gupta | Updated : June 24, 2022 10:44 AM IST
Monkey Could Be Termed As A Global Health Emergency
Monkeypox is spreading at an unprecedented scale in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) convened an emergency meeting recently to discuss the immediate actions that should be taken. There were some debates on whether or not the spread of monkeypox should be brought under the banner of a global emergency. This disease has been plaguing the country of central and west Africa for decades, but the world organizations never bothered to consider it as a concerning fact until the whole world started reporting it. The disease remerged in Africa in 2017 and, till recently, the outbreak was confined to the African subcontinent. According to the most recent updates, at present, more than 3300 cases have been reported in a total of 42 countries and it is still spreading. On Thursday, at an emergency meeting, the World Health Organization (WHO) has deliberated on whether to call it a global emergency, given the circumstances.
If the WHO were to declare it as a global emergency, the outbreak of monkeypox will be considered as an extraordinary event. It would also mean that the UN agency was considering the chances that the disease could further spread to more countries. This would mean that monkeypox is under the same banner as the COVID-19 pandemic and the eradication of polio. The WHO is still unclear about how it would impact the world if they were to declare monkeypox as a national emergency.
Monkeypox vaccine will be made available to countries by the WHO. They have especially proposed to start a vaccine-sharing mechanism to aid the countries, which have been affected. The countries which have been most affected are mostly African countries and countries in the European Union. However, according to reports, the African countries have this disease under control and know how to deal with patients, but Europe is in a much worse state and would require the vaccine more than Africa.
The European region has reported the maximum number of cases up until now. almost 84 per cent of the cases are from European countries. the Africans region has reported confirmed monkeypox cases and almost 3 per cent of the cases are from there. The American region has also reported many cases, almost 12 per cent of the cases are from that region. lastly, the 1 per cent of cases has been reported from the Eastern Mediterranean Region and another one percent from the Western Pacific Region.
