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6d ago

WHO Lifts Mpox Global Emergency After Sustained Declines in Africa

Expert advice cited sustained declines in cases with fatalities falling across key hotspots.

TOPSHOT - A clinician prepares a syringe with the mpox vaccine during the launch of the vaccination campaign at the General Hospital of Goma, on October 5, 2024. The Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of an mpox epidemic, launched a vaccination campaign against the virus on October 5, 2024 in the eastern city of Goma. The first vaccines were administered to hospital staff, with the program due to target the general population from October 7, 2024 in the east of the country, where the current outbreak started a year ago. (Photo by Aubin Mukoni / AFP) (Photo by AUBIN MUKONI/AFP via Getty Images)
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Mpox causes large boil-like skin lesions
WHO says mpox no longer a global public health emergency

Overview

  • WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accepted the Emergency Committee’s recommendation to end the PHEIC declared in August 2024.
  • The decision followed sustained drops in cases and deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as Burundi, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.
  • WHO and its advisers warned the threat persists, calling for continued surveillance, vaccination, and protection of high‑risk groups such as children and people living with HIV.
  • Africa CDC maintained that mpox remains a continental emergency, saying recent downward trends are not yet stable.
  • WHO tallied more than 34,000 confirmed cases and 138 deaths through July worldwide, with over 15,000 in the DRC, while Uganda reported 8,001 cases and 50 deaths with infections declining and nearly half of fatalities in people with HIV.