The World Health Organization is reportedly convening an emergency meeting on the alarming spread of monkeypox around the world — including a possible case in the Big Apple.
According to the NYP, The United Nations’ health authority is bringing together leading experts on the rare disease as a number of new countries announced their first confirmed cases Friday, according to the Telegraph. The main concern is how the virus — usually concentrated in West Africa — may be spreading, the UK paper noted, with many of the new cases among people who had not recently traveled.
The WHO will also be examining why clusters include gay or bisexual men, the paper said, with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) giving similar warnings. The reported emergency meeting comes as Manhattan specialists continue to investigate a potential case in a patient with symptoms who arrived at Bellevue Hospital.
More than 100 cases of the viral infection, which spreads through close contact and is usually mild, have recently been reported outside the countries in Africa where it is endemic.
STAG-IH is not the committee within WHO that would suggest that monkeypox be declared a public health emergency of international concern, WHO’s highest form of alert, which is currently applied to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a group of experts made up of scientists from across the globe and is chaired by David Heymann, a professor of epidemiology at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
