The World Health Organization (WHO) has unveiled its global health guidance for monkeypox just two days after deciding monkeypox isn’t an international health emergency.
According to the WHO’s public health advice for gatherings, health authorities have been invited to “ensure that monkeypox is included among the diseases regularly reported through routine surveillance” and to “make provision to ensure prompt isolation and adequate clinical management of identified cases.”
While they don’t mention quarantining specifically, mandatory forced quarantine may be how some countries interpret this clause — and some countries have taken the initiative in this regard.
Additionally, the WHO is warning health they address “misinformation.”
“Health authorities are invited to keep the general population and event organizers informed on the evolution of the outbreak, and adequately monitor and address rumours and misinformation about monkeypox.”
The WHO also recommends that health authorities and event organizers adopt “appropriate public health and social measures, including those aimed at infection prevention and control.”
Surprisingly, regarding public gatherings, the WHO people take individual responsibility regarding their own protection — a concept that appeared to be totally alien to the WHO months ago when they continuously recommended countries enforce vaccine mandates.
As mentioned, this guidance comes only two days after the WHO decided not to declare monkeypox an international health emergency, unlike the World Health Network.
“The emergency committee shared serious concerns about the scale and speed of the current outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom said in a statement.
“Overall, in the report, they advised me that at this moment, the event does not constitute a public health emergency of international concern, which is the highest level of alert WHO can issue.”
Unless something changes, it does not appear that the WHO plans on pushing monkeypox as the next global pandemic as they did with COVID-19.
