Monkeypox doesn’t spread as easily as Covid-19, and there are vaccines and treatments available, which is different from what happened when Covid-19 broke out. But it still sounded alarm bells.
The number of monkeypox cases outside Africa has been reported to have exceeded 3,000 since May, and no deaths have been reported.
“When a disease affects developing countries, it is not an emergency. It becomes an emergency only when developed countries are affected,” said the acting director of the Institut Pasteur in Bangui, Central African Republic. Professor Emmanuel Nakoune said. He is conducting a monkeypox treatment trial.
Still, Nakoune said it was still an important step if the WHO declared a state of emergency. “If there is political will to share the coping equitably between developed and developing countries…every country will benefit,” he said.
Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global health at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the WHO was in a precarious position post-coronavirus. Wenham said that if the WHO declared a state of emergency and countries did not act, it could weaken the agency’s role in controlling the global disease.
As of press time, some monkeypox concept stocks rose before the market, Tonix Pharmaceuticals (TNXP.US) rose nearly 4%, Chimerix (CMRX.US), SIGA Technologies (SIGA.US) rose nearly 2%.
