WHO seeks $135 million for global mpox response plan

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for global concerted action to control a new mpox outbreak, announcing a response plan that will require at least $135 million over the next six months.

"Let me be clear: this new mpox outbreak can be controlled and can be stopped," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a speech to WHO member states on Friday, later posted on social media platform X.

"Responding to this complex outbreak requires a comprehensive and coordinated international response," he said.

Transmission is mainly centred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where there have been more than 16,000 suspected cases, including 575 deaths, this year alone.

The surge is being driven by two separate outbreaks of two strains of the mpox virus, or clades, in different parts of the country.

The rapid spread of a new offshoot, clade 1b, was the main reason behind his decision to declare mpox a global public health emergency on August 14.