23 June 2022 - Over the past few weeks, reported cases and deaths from COVID-19 continue to decline globally and regionally. Naturally, we feel relieved as we say this news. But is it really the time to put our guard down? As we observe these encouraging trends, we still need to interpret them cautiously. Many countries have reduced testing and sequencing services. This means we do not receive the information to analyze the pandemic trajectory precisely. The virus will evolve, and how it’ll is still challenging to predict. As of 20 June, the Region the Eastern Mediterranean Region has reported over 21 890 000 COVID-19 cases and 343 417 deaths. As of the last week only, more than 33 300 cases and 62 deaths were reported. These numbers are not little. The pandemic is not over and is still in a public health emergency phase. We urge countries to pursue the efforts we all pledged to. We call on all countries to vaccinate all health workers, older people, and other at-risk groups and apply measures as per their situation and needs. Recently, the Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition concluded on a further review that currently licensed vaccines provide high levels of protection against severe disease outcomes for all COVID-19 variants, including Omicron with a booster dose. On other proven effective measures, we urge countries to tailor their response to the realities and the unique situation they face. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, our priority for the current situation is to maintain surveillance, testing, and genome sequencing capacities, accelerate COVID-19 vaccination to reach coverage targets, and strengthen health systems’ resilience. Now for an update on monkeypox. More than 2100 confirmed cases of monkeypox have been reported to WHO from 43 countries since January 2022, including three countries in our Region reporting fifteen confirmed cases. The risk of monkeypox is becoming real and concerning. Public health risk remains moderate at global and regional levels. Yet, investigations are still ongoing. We’re concerned that monkeypox has been going unchecked for a while. WHO convenes an Emergency Committee on monkeypox on 23 June 2022 to assess whether this outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern and to gather expert advice. WHO’s Regional Office is working closely with health authorities and ministries of health in UAE, Lebanon, and Morocco, where confirmed cases of monkeypox were reported, as well as with other countries in the Region to scale up detection and response capacities. The incident management structure has been activated to coordinate disease surveillance, comprehensive case finding, contact tracing, laboratory investigation, clinical management and isolation, and implementation of infection and prevention and control measures. First training on case management is being kicked off in Somalia this week with more than 100 healthcare professionals for early detection, differential diagnosis, lab confirmation, and appropriate treatment at health facilities. Everyone should be reminded that monkeypox can infect anyone if they have close physical contact with someone else who is infected. We again urge countries to work with communities to ensure people who are most at risk have the information and support they need to protect themselves and others and widen surveillance to stop onward transmission.