Giri Rajahram’s Post

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Consultant Infectious Diseases and General Medicine | Global Health Practitioner | MSc International Health & Tropical Medicine, Oxford 22' | Endeavour Australia 2019

𝐌𝐩𝐨𝐱 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐧 The World Health Organisation has declared #Mpox, caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV), a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) following the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which previously declared it a Public Health Emergency of Continental Security. This is the second time in 15 months that PHEIC has been called amid a surge of over 17,000 suspected cases and more than 500 deaths this year alone, including reports of cases from countries that have not reported cases previously neighbouring the current epicentre of the outbreak. While the previous global epidemic in 2022 was attributed to clade II MPXV that spread to over 100 countries; this current outbreak has been linked to at least potentially two independent clade I outbreaks affecting adults and children coupled with multiple spillover events linked to the cases. Alarmingly, there have been reports of case-fatality rates in children. It is crucial to ascertain whether this is inherently related to the virulence of the MPXV clade 1 virus or potentially related to challenges in reaching vulnerable populations and difficulties in accessing healthcare, which may contribute to the outcome. The declaration of a #PHEIC enables the mobilisation of overdue resources and the global attention the situation rightly deserves. This designation paves the way for improved surveillance, case detection, a deeper understanding of transmission dynamics, and the undertaking of disease control activities. In today's interconnected world, events in one part of the globe have far-reaching implications and do not happen in isolation. They should prompt countries to coordinate efforts on local preparedness and response capabilities while assisting with a situation to deferred expertise locally while facilitating access to all resources as needed including vaccines in solidarity.

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