The World Health Organization (WHO) has activated its highest alert level for the growing monkeypox outbreak, declaring the virus a public health emergency of international concern. The rare designation means the WHO now views the outbreak as a significant enough threat to global health that a coordinated international response is needed to prevent the virus from spreading further and potentially escalating into a pandemic. Although the declaration does not impose requirements on national governments, it serves as an urgent call for action. The WHO can only issue guidance and recommendations to its member states, not mandates. Member states are required to report events that pose a threat to global health. It is the seventh time such a declaration has been made since 2009, the most recent being for Covid-19, which was given the same label by the WHO in 2020, and follows a meeting of a committee of experts on Thursday. The WHO said the outbreak was largely among men who have sex with men who had reported having sex recently with new or multiple partners. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the decision on calling monkeypox a global emergency despite a lack of consensus among experts on the UN health agency’s emergency committee, saying he acted as “a tiebreaker.” It was the first time a UN health agency chief has unilaterally made such a decision without an expert recommendation. “We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little,” Tedros said. “I know this has not been an easy or straightforward process and that there are divergent views among the members” of the committee. WHO’s emergencies chief, Dr. Michael Ryan, said the director-general decided to declare monkeypox a global emergency to ensure the world takes the current outbreaks seriously. — Agencies