Delete the K in Monkeypox

World Health Organization (WHO)

• The monkeypox outbreak has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the WHO
• Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus overruled his own review panel, who had voted 9 against, 6 for declaring the PHEIC
• Tedros asserted that this committee of experts (who met on Thursday) was unable to reach a consensus, so it fell on him to decide whether to trigger the highest alert possible
• Any objective outside observer would conclude that the committee failed to endorse moving to an emergency committee
• When a similar meeting was held on June 23, 2022, the committee resolved by consensus to advise that the outbreak should not be declared an emergency, but this has changed in recent weeks

There has also been a sudden burst of coordinated social media postings raising concerns regarding Monkeypox risks to children

• raising the question “If Monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease, why are kids getting it?”
• CDC Director Rochelle Walensky explained the situation.

World Health Organization (WHO)

• Tedros made the declaration despite a lack of consensus among members of the WHO’s emergency committee on the monkeypox outbreak
• It's the first time a leader of a UN health agency has made such a decision unilaterally
• Since the procedures to declare a PHEIC were implemented in 2005, the WHO has only done so six times
• The last time the WHO declared an international emergency was in early 2020

The WHO's assessment is that the risk of monkeypox is moderate globally and in all regions, except in the European region where we assess the risk as high.

• "We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission about which we understand too little and which meets the criteria in the international health regulations," Tedros said.

The PHEIC designation comes from the International Health Regulations (IHR) created in 2005

• It represents an international "agreement" to help the prevent and respond to public health risks that have the potential to spread around the globe
• The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) describes the IHR regulations as "a legally binding agreement of 196 countries to build the capability to detect and report potential public health emergencies worldwide."
• These are the same IHR which the Biden administration sought to further strengthen, but the attempt to implement proposed modifications were placed on hold after an international, multi-country outcry concerning loss of national autonomy
• Vaccines exist to prevent monkeypox, and while many countries have a quantity of these vaccines on hand as part of their national stockpiles, US demand has greatly outpaced supply, and the global supply of vaccines is relativelysmall
• A more equitable blueprint for monkeypox vaccine distribution would be a key step in controlling the outbreak 

https://brownstone.org/articles/delete-the-k-in-monkeypox/