WHO to reconvene monkeypox committee

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation will reconvene its monkeypox experts to decide if the worsening outbreak now constitutes a global public health emergency, its chief said on Wednesday.

The UN health agency’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he would hold a second meeting of the emergency committee on monkeypox, with more than 6,000 cases now confirmed in 58 countries. A surge in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.