WHO confident in MENA’s ability to manage Monkeypox
Two years of Covid-19 have well prepared the Mena region’s healthcare apparatus to deal with monkeypox, the World Health Organisation said on Thursday.
After the detection of monkeypox infections in two Mena countries — the UAE and Israel — this week, concerns are rising over the spread of the disease in nations where it is not endemic.
As it stands, the WHO is confident that the recent outbreak can be effectively managed through contact tracing and wide-scale campaigns to educate people on what to do should they get infected. The organisation expressed its confidence that because the disease has a low mortality rate with most infections being mild, it will not become a problem anywhere near as large as Covid-19.
Though existing vaccines for smallpox have a high degree of efficacy against monkeypox, the WHO said it does not yet recommend that countries launch mass vaccine drives for the illness.
