The World Health Organization said Tuesday it would hold an emergency meeting next week to determine whether to classify the global monkeypox outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern.
The UN agency is also working to change the name of the disease, which was long confined to Western and Central Africa until more than 1,000 cases were detected in dozens of countries across the world over the last two months.
“The outbreak of monkeypox is unusual and concerning,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists.
“For that reason, I have decided to convene the Emergency Committee under the international health regulations next week, to assesswhether this outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.”
The emergency committee will meet on June 23 to discuss the designation, which is the highest alarm the UN agency can sound.
The WHO said Europe remained the epicenter of the global monkeypox outbreak, which posed a “real risk” with more than 1,500 cases reported in the region.
“Europe remains the epicenter of this escalating outbreak with 25 countries reporting more than 1,500 cases, or 85 percent of the global total,” Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, told a press conference Wednesday.
WHO’s European region comprises 53 countries, including several in Central Asia.
“The magnitude of this outbreak poses a real risk. The longer the virus circulates, the more it will extend its reach, and the stronger the disease’s foothold will get in non-endemic countries,” Kluge said.
Tedros added that the “WHO is also working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus… and the disease it causes.”
“We will make announcements about the new names as soon as possible.”
The announcement comes after more than 30 scientists wrote last week that there was an “urgent need for a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing nomenclature for monkeypox.”
“In the context of the current global outbreak, continued reference to, and nomenclature of this virus being African is not only inaccurate but is also discriminatory and stigmatizing,” they wrote.
While monkeypox was first discovered in macaques, many cases are believed to be transmitted to humans by rodents.
The normal initial symptoms of monkeypox include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a blistery chickenpox-like rash.
However, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that current cases do not always present flu-like symptoms, and rashes are sometimes limited to certain areas.
Tedros said that 1,600 confirmed monkeypox cases and 1,500 suspected cases have been reported to the WHO this year from 39 countries, 32 of which have been recently hit by the virus.
While 72 deaths have been reported in countries where monkeypox was already endemic, none have been seen in the newly affected countries, Tedros said.
“Although WHO is seeking to verify news reports from Brazil of a monkeypox-related death there,” he added.