The WHO Just Scheduled A Monkeypox Meeting & They'll Decide If It's Another 'Emergency'

The World Health Organization (WHO) will meet next week to answer the burning question on everyone's minds: is monkeypox a world health emergency?

Officials have reported more than 3,000 confirmed or suspected cases of the virus so far this year, and it's been spotted in many countries where it hasn't typically been seen in years past.

That's prompted the WHO to schedule an emergency committee meeting for June 23, when its experts will determine whether they need to declare it a "public health emergency of international concern," Reuters reports.

The last time they made that announcement, it was for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

"It's now clear that there is an unusual situation, meaning [that] even the virus is behaving unusually from how it used to behave in the past," said the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

"We don't want to wait until the situation is out of control," added Ibrahima Socé Fall, the WHO's emergency director for Africa.

The virus is considered endemic in 7 countries in parts of Africa, where 72 deaths have occurred, reported Politico. The majority of the deaths have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

However, hundreds of cases have been spotted outside of that endemic area in recent months, and officials remain puzzled by how quickly it has spread.

According to the CDC, the virus is not showing its usual symptoms in people. In a lot of recent cases, the rash that comes from monkeypox appears to be a lot milder, which is making it more difficult to diagnose. The same seems to be the same for cases popping up internationally.

Some nations have already started vaccinating health care workers and close contact with the smallpox vaccine, a more severe virus related to monkeypox.

Tedros added that the WHO is working on a new naming scheme for monkeypox and its variants, so it'll be easier to talk about and track going forward.

The WHO is still trying to figure out why the virus is spreading so much outside of its endemic areas.