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WHO declines to label monkeypox a global emergency

• natly 4y ago
  Thank goodness. It's not even trasmitted through the air.
  • Arete314159 4y ago
    I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. Until a few weeks ago, both monkeypox and smallpox were listed as airborne diseases. It's been changed in public health doc's since monkeypox started to spread, but not because it has changed. They're just trying to downplay it.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • loopback_device 4y ago
    "Spread can occur by small droplets and possibly the airborne route."[1] [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox
    • NeutronStar 4y ago
      From the source of your quote: "Human-to-human transmission occurs through close proximity or direct physical contact (e.g., face-to-face, skin-to-skin, mouth-to-mouth, mouth-to-skin contact including during sex) with skin or mucous membranes that may have recognized or unrecognized infectious lesions such as mucocutaneous ulcers, respiratory droplets (and possibly short-range aerosols), or contact with contaminated materials (e.g., linens, bedding, electronics, clothing)."[1] "Intubation and extubation, and any procedures likely to spread oral secretions should be performed in an airborne infection isolation room."[2] [1]: https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2022-DON390 https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2... [2]: https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/clinicians/infection-control-healthcare.html https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/clinicians/infection-... Nowhere does it says that it is airborne.
      • datalopers 4y ago
        > respiratory droplets (and possibly short-range aerosols) Maybe I'm missing something here, but is the above not the definition of airborne?
        • tremon 4y ago
          Yes, it is, but IIRC the term "airborne" can also refer to disease particles that can survive in the air unencapsulated (such as certain fungi), and can therefore travel quite some distance, and can remain hanging in the air for hours. Aerosols are heavier than air, and therefore have a very limited range and duration in which the virus can remain "airborne" in common parlance. (edit: expanded the definition to include more than just viruses as I couldn't find an example of a virus that can survive unencapsulated)
          • datalopers 4y ago
            Cool, thank you for the clarfication!
      • jcranberry 4y ago
        Its pretty disappointing that your comment was dead and I had to vouch for it.
        • yorwba 4y ago
          NeutronStar was banned in 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17553252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17553252
          • jcranberry 4y ago
            So you're saying all their comments are automatically dead until someone vouches for them? Or just he was downvoted on reputation?
            • 4y ago
    • wiz21c 4y ago
      Same wikipedia: "Limited person-to-person spread of infection has been reported in disease-endemic areas in Africa"
  • dghughes 4y ago
    The scabs when dry crumble the particles shed can become airborne and are infectious.
• ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  • SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Given that WHO declined to declare it an global emergency, who are you referring to?
    • an9n 4y ago
      • SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        But they aren't mentioned in the article. What you're saying seems unrelated and actually the opposite of the article.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
• deleted 4y ago
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• cjbgkagh 4y ago
  I read on Twitter an anecdote about someone who couldn’t get a monkeypox test because she is not a gay man. In my experience medicine has a lot of blind spots where they won’t test for things that are considered rare, but it’s possible that it is only considered rare because they’re not testing. I hope monkeypox isn’t one of them. EDIT: The tweet I saw; https://twitter.com/ahandvanish/status/1541214341558636547 https://twitter.com/ahandvanish/status/1541214341558636547
  • elromulous 4y ago
    So basically a repeat of the 80s with HIV/AIDS. As a society, we really don't learn from our mistakes, sigh.
    • tekla 4y ago
      What does this mean? HIV/AIDS research had a hard time during the 80's since it was considered EXTREMELY homophobic to ask if a person had a homosexual experience when diagnosed with HIV/AIDS/Kaposi's Sarcoma, which was an issue when tests were extremely limited/unsure of efficacy and the CDC was trying to figure out infection vectors. This was an issue since, while not unique to the gay community, it massively increased the likelyhood of transmission, but it was politically untenable to claim that AIDS could be spread sexually and that anal sex massively increased the changes of transmitting it since it was considered homophobic.
      • gamache 4y ago
        I regret to report that in the 1980's USA, homophobic speech and actions were 100% politically tenable. Reagan didn't mention AIDS publicly until 1987, and the reason for that was definitely not that he wanted to avoid being seen as homophobic.
        • tekla 4y ago
          I regret to inform you that it doesn't address the point. The saunas and baths where gay people convened were mostly in the big cities, the places where the AIDS epidemic were most concentrated due to basic population density. The very places where the message that "you should probably use condoms and have fewer partners due to this new disease that we don't understand yet but are pretty sure is sexually transmitted" was a political death sentence in the cities where the message actually mattered. This doesn't excuse Reagans response or the general homophobic attitude, but lets try to be more historically accurate. There are reasons why Fauci, who used to be hated by the gay community for above reasons, is now considered one of the good guys fighting for the gay community.
• an9n 4y ago
• yboris 4y ago
  The best resource to track the world: https://ourworldindata.org/monkeypox https://ourworldindata.org/monkeypox
  • atwood22 4y ago
    The log scale view of that graph is comforting.
    • SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      I have no idea which way or the other and my suspicions could be entirely baseless, but I noticed that the US has the same number of cases reported as Canada[1]. Given the population differences between the two countries, this suggests to me that it's possible cases are being missed. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/response/2022/world-map.html https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/response/2022/world-m...
    • marshray 4y ago
      Unfortunately, the COVID graph started out looking like that too: a rapid exponential growth followed by a slightly slower exponential growth. It probably represents the limits of diagnostic capability rather than increased effectiveness of test-and-trace efforts.
• Metacelsus 4y ago
  The actual statement: https://www.who.int/news/item/25-06-2022-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee--regarding-the-multi-country-monkeypox-outbreak https://www.who.int/news/item/25-06-2022-meeting-of-the-inte... "The Committee was concerned about the potential for exacerbation of the stigmatization and infringement of human rights, including the rights to privacy, non-discrimination, physical and mental health, of affected population groups, which would further impede response efforts." This is giving me strong early 2020 vibes . . . basically, "let's not declare an emergency to avoid stigmatization".
  • dehrmann 4y ago
    Remember when they decided it would be a good time to rename it because the name is "discriminatory and stigmatizing?" I feel like there are more urgent things right now...
    • hedora 4y ago
      Reminds me of swine flu; it's not kosher / halal.
  • allemagne 4y ago
    Appreciate the link to the primary source. Also from that statement: >The Committee discussed key issues related to the outbreak, including: current observations of plateauing or potential downward trends in case numbers in some of the countries experiencing outbreak early on... >...The Committee recognized that monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, where it has been noted to cause disease, including fatalities, for decades... >...However, the Committee unanimously acknowledged the emergency nature of the event and that controlling the further spread of outbreak requires intense response efforts... >...The Committee considered that the occurrence of one or more of the following should prompt a re-assessment of the event: evidence of an increase in the rate of growth of cases reported in the next 21 days, both among and beyond the population groups currently affected; occurrence of cases among sex workers; evidence of significant spread to and within additional countries, or significant increases in number of cases and spread in endemic countries... My reading is that the primary reason why a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)" wasn't declared is because there's not enough evidence of growth and in fact evidence of a plateau in case numbers. Obviously I don't have access to any special information either way about whether this is a fair assessment. Worries about "stigmatization" of gay men also seems to be a factor, and I agree that it would be really weird if offending the sensibilities of gay people in Western countries was a main concern (or something like that), but reading between the lines a bit I think it's probably more about the countries in Western Africa where monkeypox has already been endemic for decades and homosexuality is punishable by law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminalization_of_homosexuality#Current_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminalization_of_homosexuali...
• allemagne 4y ago
  WHO doesn't do something? Criminal negligence and/or cover-up. WHO does something? Power-hungry bureaucrats fueled by hysteria and ideology. The only thing we know for sure is that they're definitely not well-informed yet still fallible professionals just trying to do their job.
  • pclmulqdq 4y ago
    It's because the WHO appears to be corrupt and incompetent. Heads needed to roll after COVID and they didn't. Therefore, the organization was seen as endorsing the terrible handling of a global pandemic. Also, Tedros needs to go.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• dehrmann 4y ago
  For those who thought containment of covid was ever a possibility, watch how monkeypox plays out. Despite it being far less contagious, already having a vaccine, and hindsight of a recent pandemic, we already have community spread in the US. Hopefully someone in the administration placed an order for the Jynneos vaccine.
• midislack 4y ago
  They don't want a new gay disease stigma, so will just stay mum on this.
• i_have_an_idea 4y ago
  • ratg13 4y ago
• UkrainianJew 4y ago
  There is a huge difference between COVID and monkeypox in terms of public health danger. COVID is infectious for several days before any symptoms. This makes classical spread control mechanisms highly inefficient. You can reduce the human-to-human interaction through lockdowns and restrictions, but cannot stop it completely. So a small percentage of pilots, police officers, nurses and other essential jobs will always carry and spread COVID, just because that's how probabilities work. The only thing you can do with restrictions is reduce this number to hopefully lower R0 below 1, but that's not viable. Monkeypox spreads through visible and identifiable scabs. You can easily tell whether someone is infections from a simple visual inspection, so if we ever start running low on hospital beds due to it, the spread-reducing measures will be much more effective. Also, from the original article: >vast majority of cases is observed among [...] not previously immunized against smallpox (knowing that vaccination against smallpox is effective in protecting against monkeypox as well). So: 1. We already have a working vaccine 2. The potential R0 will be much lower due to lack of asymptomatic spreaders The media will do its best to paint it as the next apocalypse and divide people further based on their perception of the risk, but I do not think it would be wise to follow that lead.
• mpfundstein 4y ago
  in the Netherlands, i think we have now 270 cases or so. All are men who have sex with other men. Plus one child.... o-tone radio one might wonder how the child got infected ....
  • Ancapistani 4y ago
    Breastfeeding seems very likely, as does sleeping in the same bed as someone who was infected.
• fithisux 4y ago
  They will do eventually. Now it is touristic season.