Europe: The Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that 95% of cases of Monkeypox happen to be in United States of America and Europe alone. Thus , making them the worst hit nations across the globe.
So far , 18000 cases of Monkeypox have been reported from 78 countries . Out of these, European regions constitute a significant 70 % of the cases . Meanwhile 25 % cases have been reported from the United States of America.
He further stated that 98 per cent of the reported cases have been among men who have sex with men, stressing that stigma and discrimination can be ‘as dangerous as any virus and can fuel the outbreak’.
The director of WHO has appealed against the spread of misinformation across social media platforms as happened with Covid-19.
Previously, WHO had declared Monkeypox as public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) . The PHEIC is the apex level alert issued by United Nations health body . This only implies the level of threats it can impose to the world if the outbreak worsens any further .
WHO has thus been emphasizing upon taking sufficient measures to prevent further spread of the disease . “The best way to do that is to reduce the risk of exposure and make safe choices,” he added further.
Interestingly , the European Union , USA and Canada have green flagged the vaccine called MVA-BN (Modified Vaccinia Ankara – Bavarian Nordic) for use against monkeypox, and two other vaccines are also being tested for their effectiveness against the disease.
The WHO, however has been reluctant in approving the mass vaccination in absence of convincing facts and figures regarding the efficiency of the jabs against this disease.
Therefore, WHO has asked for the statistics from the countries that are administrating vaccination campaigns.
