The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency through the voice of Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Over a third of the total number of countries in the world reported cases of monkeypox – 70 countries, to be more precise. In the US, over 2,800 cases of infection with the viral disease were reported.
There’s no use beating around the bush. It becomes more and more clear that it may be too difficult for the world to contain the monkeypox virus. A few days ago, a seminar was held that was sponsored by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of the Harvard Kennedy School. Boghuma Titanji, who represented Emory University in Atlanta, and who serves as an infectious diseases doctor and virologist, confirmed the obvious during the event, as ScienceNews quotes:
We are losing the window to be able to contain this outbreak.
WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated, as the same source quotes:
Although I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern, for the moment this is an outbreak that is concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners,
That means that this is an outbreak that can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups.
As was expected, there are not a few of those who are concerned that monkeypox can become a new pandemic. But thanks to Dr. Amesh Adalja’s kindness and disponibility to shed some light on the subject, we found out that there’s no real reason to worry. He brings some simple but strong arguments in his claim that monkeypox won’t become another pandemic: the world has vaccines and meds, and the virus itself is much less infectious compared to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that’s to blame for the current pandemic.
