Monkeypox declared a global health emergency. Are travel curbs needed?
Global News
Even as monkeypox cases go up worldwide, health experts don’t see the need to clamp down on international travel the way countries did when COVID-19 first hit.
With monkeypox now declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO), international travel is under greater scrutiny as the virus, typically limited to certain parts of Africa, is rapidly spreading across the globe.
But infectious disease experts aren’t convinced travel curbs are needed to help contain the spread, even as cases rise.
Globally, more than 16,000 cases have been reported in 75 countries, according to the WHO, as of July 22. Canada has confirmed 681 monkeypox cases, as of July 23, but those numbers are expected to rise, the Public Health Agency of Canada said.
The growing threat of monkeypox has raised alarm in countries not accustomed to seeing such a surge as much still remains unknown about the rare zoonotic infectious disease.
“It still is a relatively new disease, entering basically a new population and not being controlled and we run the risk that, like COVID, it can become entrenched,” said Michael Libman, an infectious diseases specialist and director of the J.D. MacLean Centre for Tropical Medicine at McGill.
Gerald Evans, an infectious disease specialist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., says monkeypox doesn’t have the same ability to spread as COVID-19.
“I do not think there will be a pandemic declaration for monkeypox, just principally because it doesn’t have the same capacity for mass transmission like we saw with COVID-19,” he said.
Under the International Health Regulations (IHR), when a “public health emergency of international concern” is declared, international efforts are required to stop the spread of the virus. This could include sharing vaccines and treatments among countries and taking travel-related measures.