Sharjah 24 – AFP: The World Health Organisation will reconvene its expert monkeypox committee on Thursday to decide whether the outbreak now constitutes a global health emergency -- the highest alarm it can sound.
A second meeting of the WHO's emergency committee on the virus will be held to examine the evidence on the worsening situation, with nearly 14,000 cases reported from more than 70 countries.
A surge in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.
On June 23, the WHO convened an emergency committee of experts to decide if monkeypox constitutes a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) -- the UN health agency's highest alert level.
But a majority advised the WHO's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that the situation, at that point, had not met the threshold.
Now a second meeting will be held, with case numbers rising and spreading to six more countries in the past week.
If the committee advises Tedros that the outbreak constitutes a PHEIC, it will propose temporary recommendations on how to better prevent and reduce the spread of the disease and manage the global public health response.
But there is no timetable for when the outcome will be made public.
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