Monkeypox in Europe and beyond – tackling a neglected disease together

Europe is currently at the epicentre of the largest and geographically most widespread monkeypox outbreak ever reported outside of endemic areas in western and central Africa. Over the past month, our learning curve of this well recognised but largely neglected infection has been steep. The response to this outbreak presents both new but also familiar challenges together with considerable uncertainty. One key challenge is access to diagnostics (particularly if scaling up is required) and another is that vaccines and therapeutics are limited in most settings. What is certain, however, is that the tremendous ability of our two organisations, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe), to work together for better health for all the people across Europe during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic will need to be leveraged and strengthened as we respond to this new cross-border health threat.