Illness
WHO warns: Don’t let up on monkeypox surveillance
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns against careless handling of monkeypox. photo
© Christophe Gateau/dpa
The number of people contracting monkeypox is declining worldwide. Nevertheless, the WHO warns that the danger has not yet been averted.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns against careless handling of the disease despite declining numbers of monkeypox detections worldwide. “If the number of cases falls, an outbreak can be all the more dangerous,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Geneva on Wednesday. “This can lead us to believe that the crisis is over and that we no longer need to be vigilant.”
The WHO warns that the situation could deteriorate quickly and unnoticed at first if surveillance ceases too soon. She also complains about the corona pandemic. Too little testing is being done and too few virus sequences are being identified. It is difficult to monitor the spread and to quickly discover new variants.
Monkeypox cases have recently been reported from Sudan, including from a refugee camp near the border with Ethiopia, Tedros reported. The number of reported cases has also increased in 21 countries in South and Central America in the past week. More than 70,000 infections and 26 deaths have been reported to the WHO worldwide. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of monkeypox cases in Germany has been falling since August. Most recently, there were fewer than 50 cases per week.