WHO: Mpox No Longer Global Health Emergency

Facts

• On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the Mpox outbreak — formerly known as monkeypox — is no longer a global health emergency.¹
• Mpox, which was reportedly confirmed in over 100 countries, was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the WHO in July of last year.²
• Nicola Low, vice chair of the WHO's emergency committee on Mpox, said the change in status comes with the need to shift to a strategy for managing the long-term public health risks of the disease rather than relying on emergency measures.²
• Mpox response and preparedness will now be under national disease surveillance programs like those for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.²
• WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also pointed to the recent dramatic decline in cases, with about 90% fewer cases in the last three months, which he said show "steady progress" in the management of the virus.³
• The news comes just one day after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was working with multiple health departments to investigate new Mpox cases around the country, with a resurgence of cases reported in Chicago.⁴

Sources: ¹CNN, ²Reuters, ³Associated Press, and ⁴CBS.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Federalist. Mpox was never a global health emergency, yet the so-called experts were all too eager to give it an emergency designation, echoing the COVID hysteria that crippled global economies, stunted children's education, and scared people into mindless conformity. This disease — primarily concentrated among specific populations and not easily transmissible — was never a threat.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Vox. While panic is never the solution to a public health emergency, neither is coddling the masses with half-truths. Rather than patronizing the public, health authorities rightly communicated all the facts and decided to be proactive. Even though the global health emergency is now over, this same caution must be exercised as the threat of resurgence still remains, and people across the world continue to be sickened and die from this disease.