BREAKING: Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly, has declared Monkeypox a disease of national significance. The declaration will trigger authorities to consider national policies and public messaging to combat the spread of monkeypox in Australia.
Currently there has only been 44 cases of monkeypox recorded in Australia, and statistics indicate that outside Africa the disease is spreading mostly amongst men who have sex with other men.
It’s important to note that a WHO expert panel recently advised against declaring monkeypox a public health emergency (9 votes against to 6 for) however Tedros the director of the World Health Organisation said that he was not under any obligation to take this expert advise onboard and declared it an emergency.
This in turn has triggered countries around the world to consider their own positions, with the US also looking at a similar declaration to Australia.
All of this stems from the unilateral decisions of Tedros against the advice of his own expert panel.
