The United Nations AIDS program says progress is stalling on ending HIV/AIDS as a public health crisis by 2030 and action is needed to get it back on track.

The UNAIDS program issued its assessment in a new report pointing to recent data that showed 1.5 million people were newly infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That is over a million more new infections than the global estimate set by the United Nations. The report found that in the span of a year, the AIDS pandemic took one life every minute, around 650,000 deaths.

Mary Maby, the director for impact with UNAIDS, called those deaths preventable. She notes effective HIV treatment and tools to prevent, detect, and treat opportunistic infections are available but are not provided equitably across the world.

Among those disproportionately affected by new infections, she says, are young women and adolescent girls.

“Adolescent girls and young women are three times as likely to acquire HIV as adolescent boys and young men in sub-Saharan Africa. While men are less likely than women to obtain anti-retroviral therapy or achieve viral suppression, this leads to continued new infections in their female partners,” said Maby.

The report finds new HIV infections have been rising for several years in eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Latin America. It says new infections are rising in Asia and the Pacific, the world’s most populous region. Officials say the rise is particularly alarming as infections in the region previously had been falling.

Maby says the picture in sub-Saharan Africa is mixed.

“East and southern Africa, West and Central Africa are still seeing declines,” said Maby. “But the east and southern Africa decline is slowing down. That rate in which it was dropping before is not as fast as it was before. West and Central Africa have seen a rapid increase in treatment, mostly in Nigeria, which is slowing the epidemic as well in terms of new infections.”

The report says global disruptions, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have slowed many HIV prevention efforts. Those crises, it notes, have created difficulties for many people to access services to receive the lifesaving treatment they need.  

The assessment comes ahead of the 24th International AIDS Conference being held in Montreal, Canada and virtually this week. The talks run from July 29th through August 2. 
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When images beamed back to Earth by NASA’s largest, most powerful space telescope were released earlier this month, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio shared one of them on Twitter accompanied by a Bible verse: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”

The Webb telescope is orbiting the sun nearly two million kilometers from Earth. The observatory is on a mission to locate the universe’s first galaxies using extremely sensitive infrared cameras. The initial images released to the public provided the first-ever glimpse of ancient galaxies lighting up the sky.

The reaction to Rubio’s post was inundated with remarks like, “You do realize you can only see that due to science?” And, “If only you were scientifically literate enough to understand all of the ways that this image disproves your mythology.”

Reason versus superstition?

The skeptical comments are emblematic of the long-standing, ongoing debate about whether science and religion can be reconciled.

“There are a gazillion religions, each one making a different set of claims about reality, not just about the nature of God, but about history, about miracles, about what happened. And they’re all different, so they can’t all be true,” says Jerry A. Coyne, an evolutionary biologist and professor emeritus at the University of Chicago.

Coyne, who likens religion to superstition, wrote a book called, “Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible.”

“The incompatibility is that both science and religion make statements about what is true in the universe,” Coyne says. “Science has a way of verifying them and religion doesn’t. So, science is based on this sort of science toolkit of empirical reasoning or duplication experiments, whereas religion is based on faith.”

Coyne says he was raised a secular Jew and became an atheist as a teenager.

“Scientists are, in general, much less religious than the general public. And the more accomplished you get as a scientist, the less religious you become,” he says.

A 1998 survey found that 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most prestigious scientific organizations in the U.S., don’t believe in God.

“I personally think there’s a couple of reasons for that,” says Kenneth Miller, a devout Roman Catholic and professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry at Brown University in Rhode Island. “One of them, to be perfectly honest, is the out-and-out hostility that many religious institutions or many religious groups display towards science. And I think that tends to drive people with deep religious faith away from science.”

Mixing science and faith

Some of the world’s foremost scientists have been people of faith, however.

The Big Bang theory, which explains the origins of the universe, was first proposed by a Catholic priest who was also an astronomer and physics professor.

Frances Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health who headed the international effort that first mapped the entire human genome, is a one-time atheist who now identifies as an evangelical Christian.

Farouk El-Baz, a professor in the departments of archaeology and electrical and computer engineering at Boston University, says most of his scientific colleagues see no conflict between science and religion. For El-Baz, the son of an Islamic scholar, the marvel of the Webb telescope’s discoveries deepens both.

“Science actually underlines the importance of religion because God told us that He created the Earth and the heavens,” says El-Baz, who is also director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. “And the heavens, there are supposed to be all kinds of things out there. And scientific investigations have actually proved that, yes, there are all kinds of things out there.”

Evolution, creationism or both

For many, the conflict between science and religion is often rooted in the perceived incongruity between creationism — which suggests that a divine being created Earth and the heavens — and evolution, which holds that living organisms developed over 4.5 billion years.

Miller accepts the theory of evolution and says much of scripture is metaphorical, an explanation of the relationship between Creator and His creation in language that could be understood by people living in a prescientific age.

“[The book of] Genesis, taken literally, is a recent product of certain religious interpretations of scripture,” Miller says. “In particular, it’s an interpretation that became quite influential in the latter part of the 19th century among Christian fundamentalists in the United States. And the reality is that much of scripture is figurative rather than literal.”

Jewish tradition also accepts evolution, according to intellectual historian Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, who suggests that the rise of the religious Christian right in the United States also influenced more observant Jews to harden their position against evolution.

“Medieval Jewish philosophy basically followed the Muslim paradigm,” says Tirosh-Samuelson, a professor of history and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Arizona State University. “The Muslim theologians and the Muslim scholars showed Jews how you can integrate a monotheistic tradition together with Greek and Hellenistic science … and showed how scientific knowledge is always a tool that enables you to understand the divinely created world better.”

Vision of God

In Miller’s view, the concept of God as a designer who worked out every intricate detail of every single living thing is too narrow a vision of the Creator.

“The God that is revealed by evolution is not a God who has to literally tinker with every little piece of trivia in every living organism, but rather a God who created a universe in a world where the very physical conditions of matter and energy were sufficient to accomplish his ends,” Miller says. “And to me, that conception of God creating this extraordinary process that nature itself allows to come about is a much grander vision than a God who has to concern himself with every little detail.”

El-Baz says some people fear that science will reduce their religiosity, but the reverse is true for him.

“We understood through God’s guidance that humans evolved from other creatures, and evolution is still going on, and there’s absolutely no conflict between what science and religion are informing us,” he says. “It’s very easy to consider that a creator, or a force of creation — God or whatever faith you have — that it’s a force that put all of these things together, that created all of this.”

Tirosh-Samuelson says Judaism is not a literalist tradition but rather favors open ended interpretation, which is in keeping with her reaction to the Webb discoveries.

“The grandeur of the universe. The grandeur of God. The grandeur of the human. And in my view, there’s no contradiction between those three. On the contrary, there’s a lot of complementarity between the three,” she says.

“Jewish culture is really pretty much open to discussion and debate about practically every topic. So, there’s something very much in accord with the scientific spirit of inquiry, questioning, uncertainty, skepticism. That’s exactly the opposite of a position that is about certainty and rigidity and closed-mindedness.”
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On the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the U.S. remains one of a handful of countries that have not ratified the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) — an international treaty the U.S. legislation inspired.  

The ADA, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990, prohibits discrimination based on disability in public accommodations, employment, transportation and community living, and provides recourse for people with disabilities who faced discrimination.    

“It’s hard for the newer generation to imagine the injustices suffered before the ADA,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday in a House Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus event to celebrate the ADA’s anniversary. Biden, who is still in isolation from his COVID-19 diagnosis, delivered his remarks virtually.  

“If you’re disabled, stores can turn you away, and employers can refuse to hire you. If you use a wheelchair, there was no accommodation to take the bus or train to school or to work. America simply wasn’t built for all Americans,” Biden said. 

The administration on Tuesday announced $1.75 billion to make it easier for people with disabilities to get on board the nation’s public transportation systems, including $343 million to help agencies retrofit train and subway stations built prior to the disabilities act. 

During the caucus event, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats will not give up trying to ratify the CRPD. A National Security Council spokesperson told VOA the administration “would certainly support its ratification.” 

However, with only 48 Democrats and two independents in the 100-seat U.S. Senate, and an urgent legislative agenda in the pipeline, it is unlikely that the Biden White House will take up the matter anytime soon.  

Global disability movement 

Since its passing, the ADA has inspired disability laws in various countries and sparked a movement for disability rights around the world that culminated in the CPRD. The U.S. also provided technical assistance during the convention’s negotiation and drafting process. 

The CPRD came into force in 2008 and was signed by President Barack Obama in 2009. But in 2012, it fell five votes short of the two-thirds majority required for the U.S. Senate to adopt it, largely due to a reluctance to submit to international law on a domestic policy matter. 

Out of 193 U.N. member countries, 185 have ratified the CRPD that aims to promote, protect and ensure full and equal enjoyment of all human rights for persons with disabilities.  

“We’re always very much open and honest in recognizing we haven’t ratified the CRPD,” Sara Minkara, special adviser on international disability rights, told VOA.  

Minkara, who is legally blind, leads the Office of International Disability Rights at the U.S. Department of State, which promotes the rights of persons with disabilities around the world through American diplomacy and development aid. The position was created under the Obama administration, and her office was made permanent by the Biden administration last November. 

In various countries, views on people with disabilities often fall between pity or inspiration from their suffering, Minkara said, and those extreme narratives contribute to societies leaving people with disabilities behind. 

“We need to normalize disability. We need to change how we look at the word disability. We need to change how we look at disabilities and identities, not from a pity lens but from a strength and value-based lens.”  

The administration says it supports “disability-inclusive development and humanitarian action” around the world.  

However, there is no mechanism to ensure full disability inclusion in U.S. foreign assistance, said Eric Rosenthal, executive director of the advocacy group Disability Rights International. 

“You can offer your assistance and say our assistance is available to all people, but the truth is, people with disabilities have a hard time finding the aid,” Rosenthal told VOA. “There has to be more active outreach efforts.” 

People with intellectual disabilities, psychiatric and psychosocial disabilities are particularly vulnerable, Rosenthal said. In many places, they are often stripped of legal rights and put away in institutions. 

“There are very serious human rights violations against them in most countries, and the advocacy movements are usually way behind the advocacy movements for other disability groups,” Rosenthal said. “So, that’s an example of a very at-risk group that needs to be targeted for more attention.” 

Disability Rights International and other groups have endorsed a concept for a U.S. bill to support the efforts of disability advocates worldwide to stop children with disabilities from being institutionalized, where they often face serious neglect and abuse. 

Katherine Gypson and Cindy Saine contributed to this report.

 
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Aid workers say deep poverty and harsh living conditions lead to hopelessness among Idlib’s youth
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The World Health Organization is urging people who may have been exposed to or at risk of monkeypox to get vaccinated against the disease as a preventive measure. 

Since it declared monkeypox a global health threat last week, the WHO says the disease has continued to spread around the world, with cases topping 16,000 in at least 75 countries. 

The WHO says the outbreak is mainly concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners. It warns against stigmatizing a whole group of people, as this could cause the outbreak to accelerate exponentially by driving the disease underground. 

The WHO technical leader on monkeypox, Rosamund Lewis, says the outbreak can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups. She says mass vaccination is not required, but the WHO recommends vaccination for those who have been exposed or are at risk. 

“When someone is vaccinated, it takes several weeks for the immune response to be generated by the body. So, it is not something you can be vaccinated one day and be protected the next. You need to give it some time,” Lewis said. “So, the folks we are recommending to be vaccinated right now are anyone who has exposure, a contact with someone who may have been confirmed to have monkeypox. And so, that could be family members. It could be other close contacts.” 

She says even children are not immune from getting the disease. Between 80 and 90 cases of monkeypox in children have been reported in several countries, mostly in households where someone was infected. 

The monkeypox virus is spread from person to person through close bodily contact. It can cause a range of symptoms, including painful sores. Those at higher risk for the disease or complications include women who are pregnant, children and people who are immunocompromised. 

European countries have the highest number of confirmed cases. Although monkeypox is endemic in Africa, where it has been present since 1970, the reported caseload is relatively low. For example, Nigeria reports 101 cases, and the Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed 163 cases out of more than 2,000 suspected cases. 

Lewis says the number of suspected cases in the DRC is high because the country’s ability to confirm cases through laboratory testing is limited. She says testing needs to be supported and ramped up. 

“Suspected cases may be other things. They may even be measles. They may be chickenpox. There is no vaccine for chickenpox being used in that environment. So, it is critically important to support countries to access testing. That is one of the most important things that WHO is trying to do right now,” she said. “At the same time, in the global reports, what we are reporting are confirmed and probable cases.” 

For now, no travel-related monkeypox restrictions are in place. However, the WHO recommends anyone with signs or symptoms compatible with the monkeypox virus should avoid travel and isolate for the duration of the illness. 

 
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Russia said Tuesday it will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024 to build its own orbiting outpost. The country’s space chief made the announcement during a meeting with President Vladmir Putin.

Yuri Borisov, CEO of state space agency Roscosmos, said during the meeting that Russia plans to fulfill a promise to its partners before fully stepping away.

“Of course, we will comply with all our commitments to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made,” Borisov said during the meeting. “I think we will have started work on the Russian space station by that time.”

Moscow has made it clear that creating a Russian space station is one of its main priorities.

The U.S. space agency has not been made specifically aware of Russia pulling out of the International Space Station, a senior NASA official told the Reuters news agency.

NASA and the other partners involved in the International Space Station hope to continue their partnership through 2030, but Russia has been unwilling to commit to anything past 2024.

The announcement comes at a time of heightened tensions between the West and Moscow due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also comes just a month after NASA and Roscosmos agreed to continue using Russian rockets to deliver astronauts to the space station.
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White House ramping up monkeypox testing, treatment and vaccines
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Regional authorities, medical professionals and residents of Ethiopia’s Afar region say they are in dire need of medical aid with hundreds of hospitals and health centers destroyed by conflict. The World Health Organization says it is struggling to fulfill the country’s needs as crises around the world intensify. Henry Wilkins reports from Berhale, Ethiopia.
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A report Monday in the British newspaper The Guardian said a growing number of people in the Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda are registering in health centers for non-communicable diseases, or NCDs, that are usually seen in older people and in urban areas.

Examples cited in the paper included a hypertensive 6-year-old, a 2-year-old with respiratory problems, a 40-year-old woman with kidney failure who became hypertensive during a pregnancy, and a 20-year-old woman, diagnosed with diabetes after falling into a coma.

The report says while the number of people with NCDs at Mahama is at 5% of the total caseload, the figures are rising every month. Mahama houses 58,000 of the country’s 127,000 refugees, The Guardian reported.

Dieudonne Yiweza, senior regional public health officer for East and Horn of Africa at the U.N. refugee agency told the publication, “Before, we said NCDs affect urban settings. Now, they are attacking refugee settings . . . Now, they are affecting children and young people. For refugees, this is a challenging situation.”

Yiweza said it is not uncommon to encounter children as young as 10 or 15 who have suffered strokes.

Contributing factors to the NCDs in young people, Yiweza said, include poor housing, a limited diet that often lacks protein, and trauma.  
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Virtually all the contiguous United States experienced above normal temperatures in the past week, with more dangerously hot weather forecast. 

The U.S. heat wave followed record heat that killed hundreds if not thousands of people and sparked wildfires in Europe.

Following is an explanation of what is causing the heat waves, according to scientists.

What is a heat wave?

A heat wave has no single scientific definition. Depending on the climate of a region, it can be determined by a certain number of days above a specific temperature or percentile of the norm.

Arctic warming and jet stream migration

The Arctic is warming three to four times faster than the globe as a whole, meaning there is ever less difference between northern temperatures and those closer to the equator.

That is resulting in swings in the North Atlantic jet stream, which in turn leads to extreme weather events like heat waves and floods, according to Jennifer Francis, senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center.

Heat domes

Warmer oceans contribute to heat domes, which trap heat over large geographical areas. This weekend the heat dome is stretching from the southern plains of the Oklahoma/Arkansas area all the way to the eastern seaboard, according to the U.S. Weather Prediction Center.

Scientists have found the main cause of heat domes is a strong change in ocean temperatures from west to east in the tropical Pacific Ocean during the preceding winter.

“As prevailing winds move the hot air east, the northern shifts of the jet stream trap the air and move it toward land, where it sinks, resulting in heat waves,” the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says on its website.

El Niño and La Niña

Every few years, the climate patterns known as El Niño and, less frequently, La Niña occur. El Niño brings warm water from the equatorial Pacific Ocean up to the western coast of North America, and La Niña brings colder water.

At present, La Niña is in effect. Because summer temperatures trend lower during La Niña, climate scientists are concerned about what a serious heat wave would look like during the next El Niño, when even hotter summer weather could be expected. 

Human-influenced climate change

Climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels is a global phenomenon that is certainly playing a role in what the United States is experiencing, scientists say. 

“Climate change is making extreme and unprecedented heat events both more intense and more common, pretty much universally throughout the world,” said Daniel Swain, climate scientist at UCLA.

“Heat waves are probably the most underestimated type of potential disaster because they routinely kill a lot of people. And we just don’t hear about it because it doesn’t kill them in, to put it bluntly, sufficiently dramatic ways. There aren’t bodies on the street.”

Francis, of the Woodwell Center, said with climate change the world is seeing changing wind patterns and weather systems “in ways that make these heat waves, like we’re seeing right now, more intense, more persistent, and cover areas that just aren’t used to having heat waves.”

Alex Ruane, researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said as the world warms, “it takes less of a natural anomaly to push us into the extreme heat categories. Because we’re closer to those thresholds, it’s more likely that you’ll get more than one heat wave at the same time. We’re seeing this in the United States.”
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China on Sunday launched the second of three modules to its permanent space station, in one of the final missions needed to complete the orbiting outpost by year’s end.

A live feed on state broadcaster CCTV showed the 23-ton Wentian (“Quest for the Heavens”) laboratory module launching on the back of China’s most powerful rocket, the Long March 5B, at 2:22 p.m. (0622 GMT) from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on the southern island of Hainan.

Space agency staff, seen on the live feed observing the progress of the launch from a control room, cheered and applauded when the Wentian separated from the rocket about 10 minutes after the launch.

The launch was “a complete success”, CCTV reported shortly after.

China began constructing the space station in April 2021 with the launch of the Tianhe module, the main living quarters, in the first of 11 crewed and uncrewed missions in the undertaking.

The Wentian lab module, 17.9 meters long, will be where astronauts can carry out scientific experiments, along with the other lab module yet to be launched – Mengtian (“Dreaming of the Heavens”).

Wentian features an airlock cabin that is to be the main exit-entry point for extravehicular activities when the station is completed.

It will also serve as short-term living quarters for astronauts during crew rotations on the station, designed for long-term accommodation of just three astronauts.

Mengtian is expected to be launched in October and, like Wentian, is to dock with Tianhe, forming a T-shaped structure.

The completion of the structure, about a fifth of the International Space Station (ISS) by mass, is a source of pride among ordinary Chinese people and will cap President Xi Jinping’s 10 years as leader of China’s ruling Communist Party.

On board the space station are Shenzhou-14 mission commander Chen Dong and teammates Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe. They are slated to return to Earth in December with the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 crew.

 
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Maverick’s next wingman could be a drone.

In the movies, fighter pilots are depicted as highly trained military aviators with the skills and experience to defeat adversaries in thrilling aerial dogfights.

New technologies, though, are set to redefine what it means to be a “Top Gun,” as algorithms, data and machines take on a bigger role in the cockpit — changes hinted at in “Top Gun: Maverick.”

“A lot of people talk about, you know, the way of the future, possibly taking the pilot out of the aircraft,” said 1st Lt. Walker Gall, an F-35 pilot with the U.S. 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath in England. “That’s definitely not something that any of us look forward to.”

“I’d like to keep my job as long as possible, but I mean, it’s hard to argue with newer and newer technology,” he said. “And if that’s the way of the future, that’s what it is. But I’m just here to enjoy it while I can.”

The future for fighter pilots was on display this week at the Farnborough International Airshow near London, one of the world’s biggest aviation, defense and aerospace expos.

Defense contractors outlined how artificial intelligence and other technologies will be used in the newest warplanes as global military delegations browsed mockups of missiles, drones and fighter jets. At stake are many billions of dollars as countries update military fleets or pump up defense procurement budgets amid rising geopolitical tensions.

The original “Top Gun” movie released in 1986 follows Tom Cruise’s hot-shot Navy pilot, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, through fighter weapons training school. In the sequel, an aging Maverick, now a test pilot, learns the top secret hypersonic plane he’s working on is being canceled so the funding can be used for a pilotless drone program.

It’s a debate that’s been playing out for years in the real world. Drones have been used extensively in the war between Russia and Ukraine and other modern conflicts, raising the question of just how much need there is for human pilots to fly expensive fighter jets and other aircraft — or whether unmanned aerial vehicles could do the job.

At the Farnborough show, experts said the future of air warfare is likely to be manned and unmanned aircraft working together.

One day, fighter pilots will “have a drone aircraft that’s flying as a loyal wingman” under their control, said Jon Norman, a vice president at Raytheon Technologies Corp.’s missile and defense business.

Norman, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot, said he used to complain about drones controlled from the ground that got in his way when he was flying fighter jets.

The latest communications systems let fighters, drones and other aircraft talk to each other, he said.

Technology has already removed the need for a second person to sit in the backseat to work the radar — a role portrayed in the original “Top Gun” movie by the character Goose.

It will continue to play a bigger role in the cockpit, Raytheon executives said. Artificial intelligence will analyze reams of data from sensors placed on planes, drones, the ground or missiles flying through the air to give pilots in the sky and commanders back at headquarters a better sense of the battlefield.

In future battles, AI might allow a pilot to send an armed drone close to an enemy position “and have them just fire at will,” Norman added.

But it’s too soon to write an epitaph for the pilot.

“If we had had this conversation 20 years ago, almost everyone was certain that some (drones) would be serving in a combat aircraft replacement role. That simply hasn’t happened,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory.

Nowadays, he said, drones mainly support manned military aircraft, which “allows them to get out there with a greater combat aircraft punch.”

There was speculation that the F-35 fighter, which went into operation in 2015, would be the last manned fighter jet, said Gareth Jennings, aviation editor at defense intelligence provider Janes. “But no one says that anymore.”

The F-35, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., is a stealthy fighter part of today’s generation of warplanes. There is a next generation of fighter jets in the concept stages offering even more high-tech advances, including potentially pilotless versions, but they won’t arrive before the next decade at the earliest.

Gall, who recently graduated from fighter pilot training school, said the F-35 is easy to fly and that technology would likely make its successors even easier. But he stressed that the fighter pilot’s role would remain intense.

Even if that role isn’t going away anytime soon, the Pentagon is working on transforming it.

The Air Combat Evolution program, run by the Pentagon’s DARPA research agency, is working on incorporating artificial intelligence into warfighting, including designing a plane that can fly itself in a dogfight.

The program has already carried out a live simulation of air combat, pitting a virtual plane piloted by an AI agent against a human pilot. If all goes well, researchers plan to carry out a live dogfight with AI-enabled planes by 2024.

Experts, though, are skeptical pilots will be eliminated from the cockpit in the near future.

“I don’t think we’ll be at the stage of not needing fighter pilots for a few decades yet,” said Jennings, the aviation editor. “Unmanned technology and the public willingness to accept not having a human in the loop are just not there, and won’t be for at least another 30 years or so.”
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World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus used his authority Saturday to declare Monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern. The action comes after an Emergency Committee convened to review the situation was unable to reach consensus.

When the Emergency Committee last met a month ago, more than 3,000 cases of monkeypox in 47 countries had been reported to the WHO.  Since then, the outbreak has grown, with more than 16,000 cases reported in 75 countries. Five deaths from the disease also have been reported.

As happened the last time it met, the committee again was unable to reach consensus on whether monkeypox posed a global health threat.  WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says he has evaluated the information under consideration and has determined there is a clear risk of further international spread of the disease.

“So, in short, we have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly, through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little, and which meets the criteria in the International Health Regulations,” said Tedros. “For all of these reasons, I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.” 

Tedros says the WHO believes monkeypox poses a moderate risk globally and in all regions, except in the European region, where it assesses the risk as high.  Although there is a potential for further international spread, he says the danger of interference with international traffic remains low for now.

The monkeypox virus is spread from person to person through close bodily contact.  For now, the outbreak is concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners.   

Since the outbreak is largely contained in one group, Tedros says monkeypox can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups.

“It is therefore essential that all countries work closely with communities of men who have sex with men, to design and deliver effective information and services, and to adopt measures that protect the health, human rights, and dignity of affected communities,” he said. “Stigma and discrimination can be as dangerous as any virus.”

Tedros says the necessary tools for tackling the outbreak are available.  However, he adds the world must act together.  It must act in coordination and solidarity to bring the monkeypox virus under control and prevent it from gaining a foothold in the countries where it is found.  
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The rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak represents a global health emergency, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing Saturday.

The WHO label – a “public health emergency of international concern” – is designed to sound an alarm that a coordinated international response is needed and could unlock funding and global efforts to collaborate on sharing vaccines and treatments.

There are already effective treatments and vaccines for monkeypox, but they are in short supply. The WHO has also already been providing advice and updates since the outbreak began in early May.

At the first meeting of the expert committee, the group said it would reconsider its position on the emergency declaration if the outbreak escalated.

In Europe and the United States, cases have almost entirely been reported among men who have sex with men, and the committee also said it would reconsider if other groups began to report cases, particularly children or others who have been more vulnerable to the virus in past outbreaks in endemic countries.

On Friday, the United States identified its first two monkeypox cases in children.

Any changes to the virus itself, which spreads through close contact and causes lesions and flu-like symptoms, could also spark a rethink, the committee has said.

The group is now split between those who think an emergency declaration would accelerate efforts to contain the disease, and those who do not think it meets the criteria because it has not yet spread to new groups of people or had a high fatality rate, the sources said.
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Two children have been diagnosed with monkeypox in the U.S., health officials said Friday.

One is a toddler in California and the other an infant who is not a U.S. resident but was tested while in Washington, D.C., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The children were described as being in good health and receiving treatment. How they caught the disease is being investigated, but officials think it was through household transmission.

Other details weren’t immediately disclosed.

Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, but this year more than 15,000 cases have been reported in countries that historically don’t see the disease. In the U.S. and Europe, most infections have happened in men who have sex with men, though health officials have stressed that anyone can catch the virus.

In addition to the two pediatric cases, health officials said they were aware of at least eight women among the more than 2,800 U.S. cases reported so far.

While the virus has mostly been spreading among men who have sex with men, “I don’t think it’s surprising that we are occasionally going to see cases” outside that social network, the CDC’s Jennifer McQuiston told reporters Friday.

Officials have said the virus can spread through close personal contact, and via towels and bedding. That means it can happen in homes, likely through prolonged or intensive contact, said Dr. James Lawler, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

“People don’t crawl on each other’s beds unless they are living in the same house or family,” he said.

In Europe, there have been at least six monkeypox cases among kids 17 years old and younger.

This week, doctors in the Netherlands published a report of a boy who was seen at an Amsterdam hospital with about 20 red-brown bumps scattered across his body. It was monkeypox, and doctors said they could not determine how he got it.

In Africa, monkeypox infections in children have been more common, and doctors have noted higher proportions of severe cases and deaths in young children.

One reason may be that many older adults were vaccinated against smallpox as kids, likely giving them some protection against the related monkeypox virus, Lawler said.

Smallpox vaccinations were discontinued when the disease was eradicated about 40 years ago. 
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