Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

HEALTH

WHO warns ‘high’ risk of monkeypox in Europe as it declares health emergency

The World Health Organisation on Saturday declared the monkeypox outbreak, which has affected nearly 16,000 people in 72 countries, to be a global health emergency -- the highest alarm it can sound.

Published: 23 July 2022 17:44 CEST
Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he assessed the risk of monkeypox in the European region as high. Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP

“I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference.

He said a committee of experts who met on Thursday was unable to reach a consensus, so it fell on him to decide whether to trigger the highest alert possible.

“WHO’s assessment is that the risk of monkeypox is moderate globally and in all regions, except in the European region where we assess the risk as high,” he added.

Monkeypox has affected over 15,800 people in 72 countries, according to a tally by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published on
July 20.

A surge in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.

On June 23, the WHO convened an emergency committee (EC) of experts to decide if monkeypox constitutes a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — the UN health agency’s highest alert level.

But a majority advised Tedros that the situation, at that point, had not met the threshold.

The second meeting was called on Thursday with case numbers rising further, where Tedros said he was worried.

“I need your advice in assessing the immediate and mid-term public health implications,” Tedros told the meeting, which lasted more than six hours.

A US health expert sounded a grim warning late on Friday.

“Since the last #monkeypox EC just weeks ago, we’ve seen an exponential rise in cases. It’s inevitable that cases will dramatically rise in the coming weeks & months. That’s why @DrTedros must sound the global alarm,” Lawrence Gostin, the director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, said on Twitter.

“A failure to act will have grave consequences for global health.”

And, on Saturday, he called for “a global action plan with ample funding”, saying there was “no time to lose”.

Warning against discrimination
A viral infection resembling smallpox and first detected in humans in 1970, monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980.

Ninety-five percent of cases have been transmitted through sexual activity, according to a study of 528 people in 16 countries published in the New England Journal of Medicine — the largest research to date.

Overall, 98 percent of infected people were gay or bisexual men, and around a third were known to have visited sex-on-site venues, such as sex parties or saunas within the previous month.

“This transmission pattern represents both an opportunity to implement targeted public health interventions, and a challenge because in some countries, the communities affected face life-threatening discrimination,”
Tedros said earlier, citing concern that stigma and scapegoating could make the outbreak harder to track.

The European Union’s drug watchdog on Friday recommended for approval the use of Imvanex, a smallpox vaccine, to treat monkeypox.

Imvanex, developed by Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic, has been approved in the EU since 2013 for the prevention of smallpox.

It was also considered a potential vaccine for monkeypox because of the similarity between the monkeypox virus and the smallpox virus. 

The first symptoms of monkeypox are fever, headaches, muscle pain and back pain during the course of five days.

Rashes subsequently appear on the face, the palms of hands and soles of feet, followed by lesions, spots and finally scabs.

READ ALSO: WHO says European festivals should go ahead despite monkeypox risk

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

HEALTH

ANALYSIS: Why four in five Swedes off sick with stress are women

Gender inequality in workplaces, household chores and healthcare prejudices are all factors behind Sweden's gender gap in stress-related sick leave, according to experts.

Published: 28 March 2023 15:13 CEST
ANALYSIS: Why four in five Swedes off sick with stress are women

Sweden has been regarded as a leading example of gender equality around the world, but when it comes to work-related stress, things are far from equal.

Eighty percent of workers on sick leave because of stress between July 2019 and July 2022 were women, statistics by Sweden’s Social Insurance Agency show.

Recent numbers show the amount of women on sick leave increased more than men between October 2021 and October 2022, with a 9.8 percent and 7.2 increase, respectively.

Gender segregation in the workplace

“I think the horizontal segregation of the Swedish labour market, and also in the Scandinavian countries as a whole, is one reason why we find these big gender differences,” says Gunnel Hensing, professor in social medicine at Gothenburg University.

“Women more often work in communication-intensive occupations, occupations where you relate to other people and you are personally involved in the work, while men more often work in administrative and technical occupations.”

Ulrik Lidwall, an analyst at the Social Insurance Agency, agrees, pointing out that the healthcare, welfare and education sectors are dominated by women.

“This kind of work is hard to just drop and they often take the work home with them, becoming a job without ‘limits’,” he says.

The pandemic, as a consequence, impacted women more negatively, since they were less likely to be able to switch to remote working.

“You need to be at the hospital if you work in healthcare, you have to be at the daycare centre if it’s open. That is where women work,” says Hensing.

She mentions that reports suggest that if men work in a female-dominated area, they tend to develop the same type of symptoms as women.

“It’s not particularly that you are a woman or the female biology, but rather that you are exposed to a work environment where it’s easy to develop stress.”

But Lidwall adds: “You can have it easier or more difficult depending on your gender. For instance, in the priest occupation, women have been working against all odds. They face complications and get other tasks than men in the same workplace. Women tend to get the administrative tasks and men the more technical ones.”

Women from minority groups are especially vulnerable, with discrimination, which according to a report by The Swedish Gender Equality Agency affects them more than men, adding an extra layer of stress. And domestic violence towards women often leads to other side effects, like sleeping problems, depression or PTSD, which again increases stress.

Lidwall also points to unequal share of housework as a big cause of stress.

“Women tend to take more responsibility, which contributes to a higher risk of stress-related mental health issues.”

A 2021 report by Hensing for the Equality Agency focusing on women’s unpaid labour at home found that there are connections between unpaid work and sick leave. However, the difficulties when measuring the personal challenges that women face has resulted in a great lack of research in this field.

Ida Ahl, a rehab coordinator at health centres in the Västra Götaland region and a former insurance investigator at the Social Insurance Agency, also mentions housework inequalities as a reason for the increasing gender gap in sick leave.

“We still don’t have an accurate workload in the home. Even if there have been changes, there are probably many families where the woman clearly takes a bigger responsibility when it comes to her private life.”

Differences in treatment within Swedish healthcare

Men and women are treated differently within the healthcare system based on their gender, a report by the Swedish National Audit Office concluded in 2019.

Masculinity norms can cause men to be underdiagnosed, argues Hensing.

“Men do not seek care for their mental health issues, and if they don’t seek help they do not get their diagnosis or sickness absence note,” he says.

Ahl’s experience from Västra Götaland health centre backs up the claim.

“I believe (…) that men seek healthcare less than women. I have noticed that when men seek help at our place, they often refer to a relative, boss or someone else who has pushed them to seek help,” she says.

Extended definition of illness

Ahl includes two other reasons why stress diagnoses are on the rise.

The first one is the patient self-diagnosing before they meet the doctor.

“When they call the health centre for the first time, they are certain they have exhaustion syndrome. That makes it more difficult for us, because it might be that the patient does not at all meet the criteria for the diagnosis, but still have made that conclusion themselves,” she explains.

The second one is an extended definition of illness, which is not always accurate or helpful to the patient.

“A lot of patients seeking help have pretty normal reactions to different kinds of loads in life and maybe a little bit too often put a sickness label on things that don’t have sickness value,” Ahl adds.

Article by Gothenburg University students Anna Hallgren, Mireia Jimenez and Khorambanoo Askari

SHOW COMMENTS