The Director General of the World Health Organization has called for global concerted action to control a new mpox outbreak, announcing a response plan that will require at least $135 million over the next six months.
On Monday this week, the WHO declared that the increase of mpox, formerly called monkeypox, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a number of other African nations constituted a health emergency of international concern.
On 14 August, the WHO stated that mpox has the ‘potential to spread further across countries in Africa and possibly outside the continent.’
Agencies of different countries including Nigeria have announced infection cases of the virus, with state health agencies put on standby.
On Friday, Tedros sounded a note of caution;
“Let me be clear: this new mpox outbreak can be controlled and can be stopped,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a speech to WHO member states on Friday, later posted on social media platform X.
“Responding to this complex outbreak requires a comprehensive and coordinated international response,” he said.