WHO to convene emergency committee to assess international risk from mpox outbreak

By Bhanvi Satija and Unnamalai L

(Reuters) -The head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday an emergency committee will be convened to discuss whether the current mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo represents a public health emergency of international concern.

The current mpox outbreak in Congo has already seen around 27,000 cases, and claimed more than 1,100 lives, most of them children, since the beginning of 2023.

The WHO said that 50 more mpox cases had been confirmed and more were suspected in four countries - Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda - where cases have previously not been reported.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that he had decided to convene an emergency committee in light of the spread of mpox in neighbouring countries and the potential for futher international spread within and outside Africa.

An emergency committee is made up of international experts who provide technical advice and recommendations to the WHO chief about whether a disease outbreak is a "public health emergency of international concern" - the agency's highest level of alert. The final decision is made by the director general.

The U.N.-affiliated WHO said the emergency committee will be pulled together "as soon as possible" but did not provide a definite date for the meeting or other details.

"We have released $1 million from the WHO contingency fund for emergencies to support scale up of the response and we plan to release more in the coming days," Tedros said on a call with journalists.

Tedros added that the agency had triggered the process for emergency use listing of the two mpox vaccines - Bavarian Nordic's Jynneos and KM Biologics LC16 - to help accelerate access to the shots. Congo authorities had approved the use of both the vaccines in June.

The outbreak began with the spread of an endemic strain, known as Clade I. But the new variant, known as Clade Ib, appears to spread more easily through routine close contact, as seems to be the case among children.

Presence of the Clade Ib strain had been confirmed in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, WHO's Tedros said while the strain in Burundi was still being analysed.

A different, less severe form of the virus - clade IIb - spread globally in 2022, largely through sexual contact among men who have sex with men. This prompted the WHO to declare a public health emergency. Although that has ended, WHO has said the disease remains a health threat.

(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Unnamalai L in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and David Gregorio)