Geneva — The mpox outbreak is not another COVID-19, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, because much is already known about the virus and the means to control it. While more research is needed on the Clade 1b strain which prompted the United Nations agency to declare a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the spread of mpox can be reined in, the WHO’s European director Hans Kluge said.
In July 2022, the WHO declared a PHEIC over the international outbreak of the less severe Clade 2b strain of mpox, which mostly affected gay and bisexual men. The alarm was lifted in May 2023.
“Mpox is not the new COVID,” Kluge insisted. “We know how to control mpox and, in the European region, the steps needed to eliminate its transmission altogether,” he told a media briefing in Geneva, via video-link
