The World Health Organisation (WHO) has insisted that the Mpox epidemic remains a public health emergency.

WHO first declared an emergency when a new strain of mpox spread from the severely affected Democratic Republic of the Congo to neighbouring countries in August.

The WHO Director-General has decided that the increase in mpox still qualifies as a public health emergency of worldwide significance after the WHO called a meeting of its Emergency Committee and followed its recommendations.

According to WHO, the decision was made in light of the growing number and ongoing geographic dispersion of cases, field operating difficulties, and the requirement to establish and maintain a coordinated response across nations and partners.

Mpox is a virus that is spread by close contact and usually manifests as pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms. Although it is typically minor, it can be fatal.

More than 1,000 suspected deaths and more than 46,000 suspected cases have been reported this year throughout Africa, primarily in Congo.

The WHO’s highest level of warning, known as a “public health emergency of international concern,” was previously used to describe a worldwide epidemic of a different type of mpox in 2022–2023.

This year’s notice was issued in response to the transmission of a novel viral variation known as clade Ib. Among other nations, cases of this variation have been verified in the UK, Germany, Sweden, and India.

Following criticism for moving too slowly on vaccinations, WHO approved Bavarian Nordic’s mpox vaccine in September and listed Japan’s KM Biologics vaccine for emergency use earlier this month.

Officials in Italy, where sentiments are still high over the unresolved murder of student Giulio Regeni, who was detained and died in Egypt eight years ago, are becoming concerned over the arrest of an Italian-Egyptian pornographic performer in Cairo.

According to reports in Italian publications, Elanain Sherif, 44, also known by his stage name Sheri Taliani, was snatched up at Cairo airport on Nov. 9 and brought to prison without providing an official reason, his attorney said on Friday.

Although he had not been notified by Egyptian officials, Sherif’s attorney, Alessandro Russo, told Reuters that the detention could have been due to the country’s ban on the online publication of pornography.

A request for comment was not immediately answered by the Egyptian foreign ministry.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani stated that the situation was being monitored “with the utmost attention” by the government and the Italian embassy in Cairo.

The lawyer added that Sherif has not been heard from since he was moved from a jail in Cairo to another prison in Alexandria a few days after his detention. His mother was the last person known to see him the day after he was taken into custody.

Although Sherif was born in Egypt, he currently resides in Italy and is dual-national.

According to Russo, he was attempting to get in touch with an Egyptian attorney that Sherif’s mother had assigned to represent him in Egypt.

“From Italy, we can only try to verify that Elanain Sherif is being treated well, the Egyptian lawyer will take care of the case over there,” he said.

“It’s clear that we are thinking with concern about the cases of Giulio Regeni and Patrick Zaki.”

Four Egyptian security guards have been accused by Italy with the 2016 abduction and murder of Regeni, a postgraduate student at Cambridge University in Britain.

Italian prosecutors claim that Egyptian authorities imprisoned him because they believed he was a British spy, while Egypt originally claimed he had died in a sex attack or a car accident before blaming the murder on a band of criminals

In 2020, upon returning home to Egypt, Zaki, an Egyptian scholar who had been studying in Italy, was detained. He received a pardon from the Egyptian president last year, only one day after being sentenced to three years in prison for disseminating false information.