WHO again considers declaring monkeypox a global emergency
London(AP): As the World Health Organisation's emergency committee convenes Thursday to consider for the second time within weeks whether to declare monkeypox a global crisis, some scientists say the striking differences between the outbreaks in Africa and in developed countries will complicate any coordinated response.
African officials say they are already treating the continent's epidemic as an emergency. But experts elsewhere say the mild version of monkeypox in Europe, North America and beyond makes an emergency declaration unnecessary even if the virus can't be stopped. British officials recently downgraded their assessment of the disease, given its lack of severity.
Monkeypox has been entrenched for decades in parts of central and western Africa, where diseased wild animals occasionally infect people in rural areas in relatively contained epidemics. The disease in Europe, North America and beyond has circulated since at least May among gay and bisexual men. The epidemic in rich countries was likely triggered by sex at two raves in Spain and Belgium.
Some experts worry these and other differences could possibly deepen existing medical inequities between poor and wealthy nations.
There are now more than 15,000 monkeypox cases worldwide. While the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries have bought millions of vaccines, none have gone to Africa, where a more severe version of monkeypox has already killed more than 70 people. Rich countries haven't yet reported any monkeypox deaths.
What's happening in Africa is almost entirely separate from the outbreak in Europe and North America, said Dr Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at Britain's University of East Anglia who previously advised WHO on infectious diseases.
The UN health agency said this week that outside of Africa, 99% of all reported monkeypox cases are in men and of those, 98% are in men who have sex with other men. Still, the disease can infect anyone in close, physical contact with a monkeypox patient, regardless of their sexual orientation.
In these very active gay sexual networks, you have men who really, really don't want people to know what they're doing and may not themselves always know who they are having sex with, Hunter said.
Some of those men may be married to women or have families unaware of their sexual activity, which makes contact tracing extremely difficult and even things like asking people to come forward for testing, Hunter said, explaining why vaccination may be the most effective way to shut down the outbreak.
That's probably not the case in Africa, where limited data suggests monkeypox is mainly jumping into people from infected animals. Although African experts acknowledge they could be missing cases among gay and bisexual men, given limited surveillance and stigmatization against LGBTQ people, authorities have relied on standard measures like isolation and education to control the disease.
Dr Placide Mbala, a virologist who directs the global health department at Congo's Institute of National Biomedical Research, said there are also noticeable differences between patients in Africa and the West.
We see here (in Congo) very quickly, after three to four days, visible lesions in people exposed to monkeypox, Mbala said, adding that someone with so many visible lesions is unlikely to go out in public, thus preventing further transmission.
But in countries including Britain and the US, doctors have observed some infected people with only one or two lesions, often in their genitals.
You wouldn't notice that if you're just with that person in a taxi or a bar, Mbala said. So in the West, people without these visible lesions may be silently spreading the disease.
He said different approaches in different countries will likely be needed to stop the global outbreak, making it challenging to adopt a single response strategy worldwide, like those for Ebola and COVID-19.
Dr Dimie Ogoina, a professor of medicine at Nigeria's Niger Delta University, said he feared the world's limited vaccine supplies would result in a repeat of the problems that arose in the coronavirus pandemic, when poorer countries were left empty-handed after rich countries hoarded most of the doses.
It does not make sense to just control the outbreak in Europe and America, because you will then still have the (animal) source of the outbreak in Africa, said Ogoina, who sits on WHO's monkeypox emergency committee.
This week, US officials said more than 100,000 monkeypox vaccine doses were being sent to states in the next few days, with several million more on order for the months ahead. The US has reported more than 2,000 cases so far, with hundreds more added every day.
Some US public health experts have begun to wonder if the outbreak is becoming widespread enough that monkeypox will become a new sexually transmitted disease.
Declaring monkeypox to be a global emergency could also inadvertently worsen the rush for vaccines, despite the mildness of the disease being seen in most countries.
Dr Hugh Adler, who treats monkeypox patients in Britain, said there aren't many serious cases or infections beyond gay and bisexual men. Still, he said it was frustrating that more vaccines weren't available, since the outbreak was doubling about every two weeks in the UK.
If reclassifying monkeypox as a global emergency will make (vaccines available), then maybe that's what needs to be done, he said. But in an ideal world, we should be able to make the necessary interventions without the emergency declaration.
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Dense fog disrupts Delhi airport operations, over 130 flights impacted
New Delhi: Flight operations at Indira Gandhi International Airport were severely disrupted on Monday due to very dense fog that drastically reduced visibility across the national capital, officials said.
According to a report published by The New Indian Express, more than 130 flights were impacted, including 128 cancellations 64 arrivals and 64 departures while eight flights were diverted to other airports as airlines struggled to operate under adverse weather conditions.
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Sharing a passenger advisory on X (formerly Twitter), the Delhi Airport informed that "flight operations are currently being conducted under CAT III conditions due to dense fog, which may result in delays or cancellations."
The disruption comes amid worsening weather and environmental conditions in the city. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued an orange alert for very dense fog across Delhi-NCR, warning of travel delays and poor visibility during early morning hours.
As per the report, the city’s Air Quality Index (AQI) hovered around 460 in the early hours, placing it in the “hazardous” category. As many as 19 monitoring stations reported hazardous air quality, with Anand Vihar recording the worst levels. Other areas reported air quality ranging from “very poor” to “severe.”
Meanwhile, the Delhi government is considering a partnership with IIT Kanpur to deploy Artificial Intelligence for pinpointing pollution sources and evaluating their impact.
Officials reportedly said the environment department is working on a roadmap for the partnership, including institutional mechanisms and phased implementation. Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said the focus would be on data-driven decision-making. “We are moving towards a model where decisions are driven by real-time data, source identification, and measurable outcomes, not reactive measures.” he said.
He proposed initiative aims to enable targeted interventions across sectors by strengthening Delhi’s ability to track pollution sources at a granular level.
