The global
monkeypox outbreak has been receding for months, but experts warn
against prematurely declaring victory because a resurgence remains possible and
the virus still circulates in the African countries where it has long been
endemic.
اضافة اعلان
Since monkeypox suddenly started spreading across the world in May, more
than 73,000 cases and 29 deaths have been recorded in over 100 countries, the
World Health Organization said this week.
But since peaking in July, infection numbers have consistently fallen,
particularly in Europe and North America, the hardest hit areas in the early
stages of the global outbreak.
The number of new global cases fell by 20 percent in the seven days up to
Sunday compared to the previous week, the WHO said.
Case numbers are still however increasing in some areas including in South
America, with infections rising seven percent in Peru during that time.
"We are heading towards the end, but we are not there yet,"
Jean-Claude Manuguerra, head of the environment and infectious risks unit at
France's Pasteur Institute, told AFP.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week that "a declining
outbreak can be the most dangerous outbreak, because it can tempt us to think
that the crisis is over, and to let down our guard".
- Awareness key -
Campaigns by organisations in those communities have helped raise awareness,
Manuguerra said, adding that such groups were "closer to the ground and
perhaps more listened to than the authorities".
Carlos Maluquer de Motes, a virologist at the UK's Surrey University, said
vaccinating against monkeypox "has helped, but the number of available
doses remains low".
However, the vaccines, which were originally developed to fight smallpox,
are still recommended to protect against monkeypox.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said this week
that robust data on the effectiveness of the vaccines was "still
lacking".
A preliminary analysis by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
last month however found that unvaccinated people were 14 times more at risk of
getting monkeypox.
- Possible
scenarios -
Warning that "significant uncertainties remain", the ECDC laid out
four possible scenarios for how the outbreak could evolve.
The worst case scenario is that monkeypox has a resurgence worldwide as the
behaviour of at-risk groups returns to normal.
Or monkeypox could wane or even be eliminated completely.
Monkeypox is much less contagious than Covid, and does not mutate into other
variants as rapidly.
However, "the more cycles of infection there are, the more likely
monkeypox is to change and adapt", Maluquer de Motes said.
Despite spreading across the world this year, the majority of deaths have
come where monkeypox has long been killing people: in the 11 African countries
where it remains endemic.
Elsewhere monkeypox has spread via human contact, but in these African
regions, outbreaks mostly occur when people catch it from animals, mainly
rodents, in rural areas.
This means the source of the virus in Africa remains, warned Steve
Ahuka-Mundeke, the head of virology at the Democratic Republic of the
Congo's medical research institute INRB.
"We may have new exported cases and a new outbreak wave at any
time," he said.
In recent months "we have again seen that global strategies are only
deployed when northern countries are affected -- which does not at all absolve
the African health authorities", he added.
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