Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The World Health Network (WHN) has declared an outbreak of monkeypox a pandemic. This was stated on the website of the organization.

To date, 3,417 confirmed cases of monkeypox have been reported in 58 countries, it said. The outbreak is rapidly expanding across several continents. The organization called on countries and global health authorities to take immediate and effective action.

“The outbreak will not end without concerted global action. Even with a much lower mortality rate than smallpox, if measures are not taken to stop the continued spread, millions of people will die and many more will become blind and disabled,” the message says.

It is emphasized that if measures are taken in advance, it will be possible to control the outbreak with the least effort and prevent worsening of the consequences. WHN recommends starting to educate the public about symptoms, expand testing availability, and trace contacts of confirmed cases.

The health network noted that so far, most cases have been in adults, but any spread of the disease among children will lead to much more severe cases and more deaths. It will also make it difficult to infect animals, especially rats and other rodents, as well as pets.

The WHN declared the monkeypox outbreak a pandemic ahead of the 23 June meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) to decide on the designation of the infection.

"WHO must urgently declare its own public health emergency of international concern," said epidemiologist and health economist and WHN co-founder Eric Feigl-Ding.

He added that if effective measures are taken in advance, larger interventions will not be required. Health authorities and governments should learn from past mistakes in delaying response, he said.

"The key to stopping the outbreak may be to get ahead of it. Declaring monkeypox a pandemic now will help initiate a multi-pronged, interdisciplinary approach to combating it. The more we delay, the more we increase the chances that it will get out of control," he says. in the message.

Earlier, Russian Minister of Health Mikhail Murashko said that in the Russian Federation there is no need for mass vaccination of citizens against monkeypox. According to the head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova, there is not a single positive test result for the presence of this disease in the country.

The World Health Organization has already registered more than 3.4 thousand confirmed cases of the disease and about 1.5 thousand suspected cases worldwide. There are cases of the disease in France, Sweden, Italy, Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, the USA, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Georgia and other countries.