Monkeypox cases top 5,000: WHO

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday that 5,322 laboratory-confirmed cases of monkeypox had been reported to it in the current outbreak, 85 percent of which are in Europe.

Though case numbers are rapidly increasing, the United Nations health agency has not set a date for its emergency committee on monkeypox to convene for a second meeting. "From January 1 to June 30 this year, we have 5,322 laboratory-confirmed cases and one death," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told reporters in Geneva.

The number has increased by 56 percent in eight days. The previous figure given by the WHO, for the period up to June 22, was 3,413 cases. A surge in monkeypox cases has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.

Chaib said infections had now been reported in 53 countries. "Eighty-five percent of cases are in Europe, followed by the African region, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Pacific," she said.

"The WHO continues to ask countries to pay particular attention to monkeypox cases to try to stop further infections." Most monkeypox infections so far have been observed in men who have sex with men, of young age and chiefly in urban areas, according to the WHO. The normal initial symptoms of monkeypox include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a blistery chickenpox-like rash.