Jacob Lorenzo-Morales
Professor of Parasitology, Director of the University Institute of Tropical Diseases and Public Health of the Canary Islands of the University of La Laguna and CIBERINFEC researcher
The declaration of an international emergency is necessary to increase coordination between countries and to implement measures to control the circulation of this virus on an international scale, as well as to improve active case tracking. In the current situation it is a very appropriate and necessary response.
The decision has come sadly late, even though we initially saw that human-to-human transmission seemed to be a fact that would be resolved in a few weeks. In fact, the increase in cases already made the WHO tremble at the end of June and it was decided to wait, despite warnings from the scientific community that these monkeypox outbreaks were not showing similar behaviour to those in the past.
On the one hand, attempts were made to educate the population on how to avoid infecting themselves or others, health professionals have been confronted with an unexpected number of cases, and most countries are likely to have more cases than detected. Effective tracing has failed as most of those affected have either not been able to identify their close contacts or, probably to protect their privacy, have refused to do so.
Finally, prophylactic measures (vaccination) in the most affected population group are arriving late and out of sync.
Let us hope that this declaration of international alert will allow countries to act in a coordinated and effective manner.