The number of cases of mumps in China continues to rise. The World Health Organization reports that 117 confirmed cases occurred in China in the week ending July 21. There were 315 documented cases between the week of May 5 and the week of July 21.
The global health agency also noted that China experienced the biggest weekly increase in the number of cases during the most recent week for which data was available. Over the past three weeks, there has been a 50% increase in cases.
In the spring of 2022, the United Kingdom was the epicenter of a global outbreak of monkey pox. It then moved on to the rest of Europe and the United States. Limited international travel was permitted from China at this time due to ongoing COVID limitations.
The population of homosexual, bi, and other men who have sex with males was the primary target of the mpox outbreak, formerly known as monkeypox. The CDC has warned, however, that the virus is not selective and can infect people of any sexual orientation.
Public health experts believe that a combination of a behavioral shift on the part of the general public and a vigorous vaccination push was responsible for stemming the outbreak in the United States.
In May of 2023, the World Health Organization ended their public health emergency due to mpox. However, this is when the number of reported cases in Asia grew, namely in Japan, Thailand, and most recently China.
An infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco named Dr. Peter-Chin Hong told ABC News that despite the rising number of cases, there has been a lack of urgency to tackle the mpox pandemic in China. Dr. Hong added that the Chinese CDC did not announce a vaccine campaign as part of their plan to prevent and control the spread of the disease until July 26.
Even if mpox is less contagious than some other diseases, “we should care” because of the global spread of infectious diseases, as stated by Dr. Hong. This means it has the potential to spread to other regions and cause secondary epidemics. Now that the world is once again more accessible, events in China will have an even greater impact on other nations.