The World Health Organization (WHO) has ended the global health emergency for mpox, just days after it declared the end of the global health emergency for Covid-19.
However, said Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, despite the change in designation, both viruses “continue to circulate, and to kill, so this does not mean the work is over”.
The announcement follows a recommendation by WHO’s emergency committee on mpox, which said the end of the emergency “is not the end of the fight against the virus – but the beginning of a policy shift”.
Dr Nicola Low, vice-chair of the mpox committee, said this means “moving towards a strategy to manage the long-term health risks posed by mpox rather than the emergency measures inherent in public health emergencies".
Recommendations included integrating mpox into national pandemic prevention, preparedness and surveillance programmes, as well as sexual health services already in place for diseases like HIV, reports Health Policy Watch.
Central to the WHO mpox committee’s policy recommendations is an emphasis on continued engagement with affected communities like men who have sex with men.
Outside the endemic African countries, men who have sex with men account for nearly all mpox cases, including 99% in the US.
Meanwhile, around half of all mpox infections have been in people living with HIV.
Including mpox as standard in monitoring, detection and prevention programmes for sexually transmitted diseases will allow men who are already connected to sexual health services to be checked for mpox at the same time as other STIs, experts said.
Lost amid the relief of the announcement is the reality that countries where the disease is endemic – like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria – still have a way to go.
While a smallpox vaccine made by Danish company Bavarian Nordic was quickly deployed under emergency authorisations in the US and Europe at the start of the mpox emergency, the manufacturer’s monopoly over the vaccine patent and limited stock before the global outbreak made access difficult, even for rich countries.
Currently, WHO recommends the use of Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine primarily for post-exposure prophylaxis, and only for use in prevention under specific circumstances.
Randomised control trials to improve data on the efficacy of the vaccine are being planned in endemic countries.
Another obstacle to eradicating mpox is the mystery around how the strain of the virus that spread globally evolved to sustain prolonged human-to-human transmission. Until that question can be solved, the road to ridding the world of the virus remains a long one.
Health Policy Watch article – WHO Declares End to Mpox Global Health Emergency (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Lessons – and mysteries – from fast-disappearing mpox
First batch of donated mpox vaccines heads to Africa
WHO declares monkeypox a global health emergency