While I wait for the @WHO presser to start, I might as well share a few further comments on the recent decision not to declare the #monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern:
@WHO 1. I’ve talked to a lot more researchers and public health experts since the decision was announced and the overwhelming sentiment is that it was the wrong call.
@WHO Amongst the harshest was @MichaelWorobey who told me: "Right now PHEICs send the message that the WHO is the last institution to grasp that a newly identified outbreak is indeed a public health emergency of international concern."
@WHO@MichaelWorobey "The window may already have closed on stopping the establishment of a new sexually transmitted disease worldwide, but a PHEIC has not even been declared”, @MichaelWorobey told me.
@WHO@MichaelWorobey 2. @clarewenham told me that the emergency commitee's report basically outlined how all criteria for a PHEIC had been met and then still declined to declare one. It’s not just this panel: “There has been this inconsistent application of the criteria. And this is problematic."
@WHO@MichaelWorobey@clarewenham 3. We know very little about how effective PHEICs actually are.
That’s a problem too!
"To date there is no scientific evidence on the effect a PHEIC has,” @clarewenham told me. "We have been trying to get funding to do this research for years but without success."
@WHO@MichaelWorobey@clarewenham 4. As with so many of these issues, it would probably help to diversify who sits on these committees and include people with a background in international health law, ethics or political science.
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I‘ve been thinking and reading a lot about „trust“ lately: its role in science, in public health and in journalism, how to build trust, how it is lost.
As a science journalist that has been covering the #covid19 pandemic for two and a half years how could I not?
In that context, this short piece by @anneapplebaum looking at the January 6 hearings as a best practice example of how to build trust is well worth a read.
I agree that there is much to be learnt from whether this effort pays off.
As she writes: „The point is not to establish whether some detail that one witness reveals is true or false, but rather to tell a larger story, using a wide range of perspectives, delivered in a manner optimally designed to create trust.“
“This pandemic is changing, but it's not over”, says @DrTedros at @WHO presser.
“Driven by BA.4 and BA.5 in many places, cases are on the rise in 110 countries, causing overall global cases to increase by 20%.” Deaths up in 3 of 6 WHO regions but global figure relatively stable
@DrTedros@WHO "Our ability to track the #covid19 virus is under threat as reporting and genomic sequences are declining meaning it is becoming harder to track Omicron and analyse future emerging variants”, says @drtedros.
@DrTedros@WHO More than 12 billion vaccine doses have been delivered, says @DrTedros.
But: “100s of millions of people, including 10s of millions of health workers, and older people in lower income countries remain unvaccinated which means they're more vulnerable to future waves of the virus"
I think yesterday’s decision not to declare the ongoing #monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) raises some interesting questions.
So a brief thread:
When is something a PHEIC?
The International Health Regulations say it is an "extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response"
You can boil it down to 3 criteria:
- extraordinary event
- risk of international spread
- may require a coordinated response
International spread is clearly given, and the committee itself noted "the response to the outbreak requires collaborative international efforts"
Finally had a chance to read @UKHSA’s second technical briefing on #monkeypox.
It mostly reaffirms what we already knew or kind of knew. So just a quick thread.
Entire report is here: gov.uk/government/pub…
@UKHSA There were 846 confirmed cases up to 22 June.
The vast majority (99%) continues to be in men:
Of 810 confirmed cases with gender information:
- 805 were male
- 5 were female
Here is a striking graph (not including all cases):
@UKHSA 321 patients answered detailed questionnaires. As you can see from the table, 96% were "gay, bisexual, or men who have sex with men (GBMSM) strongly suggesting transmission in defined sexual networks, both internationally and domestically”
I wrote a piece about why monkeypox might suddenly be spreading in countries that have never seen a large outbreak before and what role sexual networks might play.
Caveats first:
At the moment monkeypox cases in non-endemic countries are mostly reported among men who have sex with men (MSM). But that could be driven in part by differences in health-seeking behavior.
I‘m a gay man living with HIV man and I go for a check-up every three months. Many MSM take Prep and have similar check-ups. As Lilith Whittles told me: „MSM have a better relationship with medical practitioners than heterosexual men”
Sorry, aber das hier von @dpa (hier via @SZ) ist übelste Misinformation zu Affenpocken und in jeder Hinsicht katastrophale Kommunikation: 1. Das RKI schreibt ganz explizit für Patienten: "Das Tragen von Kondomen allein schützt in dieser Phase nicht vor Infektion."
@dpa@SZ 2. Dürfte bei den meisten Menschen beim Sex die Schleimhaut des Penis nicht die einzige Schleimhaut sein, die mit dem oder den Anderen in Kontakt kommt.
@dpa@SZ 3. Wissen wir bislang nicht einmal mit Sicherheit ob das Virus überhaupt über Sperma übertragen wird. Das ist möglich, aber noch unklar.
Klar ist aber, dass das Virus durch Haut-zu-Haut-Kontakt übertragen wird. In dieser Situation allein auf Kondome zu setzen ist Unsinn.