The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for an emergency meeting to discuss a jump in monkeypox cases spreading from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement on Wednesday, amid an outbreak that has seen nearly 27,000 cases in the Congo and claimed about 1,100 lives, many of them children.
Formerly known as monkeypox, mpox is an infectious disease caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals that can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.
It was first discovered in humans in 1970 in Democratic Republic of Congo, causing fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.
