A dose of monkeypox vaccine is prepared on July 23, 2022 | Photo by Hollie Adams/Getty Images
Monkeypox is now a global public health emergency, the head of the World Health Organization decided on Saturday. The viral disease is officially a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, putting it in the same league as polio and COVID-19.
In May, clusters of monkeypox cases were detected in the UK and Europe. Since then, 16,836 cases of monkeypox have emerged in 74 countries, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Monkeypox outbreaks have historically been much smaller, and occurred in central and western Africa.
“The cases we are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg,” Albert Ko told the Associated Press. Ko is a professor of public health and epidemiology at Yale University. “The window has…
