On Aug. 14, the World Health Organization (WHO) formally declared mpox, previously known as monkeypox, a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).
PHEIC declarations are often used to formally open global government channels to coordinate efforts to combat the spread of a disease. Currently, only three diseases merit the dire PHEIC-level warning: Covid-19, cholera, and now mpox.
Earlier in the week, Africa’s coordinating health body, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, declared a similar emergency on that continent. According to the group, more than 15,000 cases of mpox have been declared in Africa in 2024, representing a 160% rise over 2023. The group reports 461 deaths so far across 18 countries and an alarming rate of expansion.
There are two versions of mpox, Clade I and Clade II. In 2022, the milder version, Clade II, swept through countries such as the United States, where the illness had been mostly unknown despite years of outbreaks in Africa. Now Clade I, a different and deadlier strain of mpox, is spreading in populous Central African countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Ghana.
According to the WHO, both versions of the viral infection spread through close human contact, including speaking face-to-face, as well as through contact with infected materials such as bedding or clothing.
Symptoms of mpox include a rash of blisters or sores for 2 to 4 weeks, then fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy, and swollen lymph nodes. Victims of the 2022 outbreak in the United States generally saw symptoms resolve after a few weeks, but the strain currently spreading quickly in Africa has proven much deadlier, in part because vaccination supplies have not yet made it to the area in quantity.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 10% of people who have contracted Clade I mpox in Central Africa have died.
At this time, no government agency is warning against travel on the basis of mpox, not even if those plans include travel to affected African nations.
However, several authorities—among them the CDC and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control—are recommending vaccination for anyone who anticipates intimate and/or sexual contact with people suspected of potential infection.
Vaccine doses remain available in the United States; find where to get the mpox vaccine here. It’s hoped that the WHO’s emergency declaration will speed the availability of the vaccine in Africa to stem the spread.
The World Health Organization has posted recommendations on avoiding mpox and dealing with infection on the agency’s public advice page.
