Two epidemiology professors at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health were named to a World Health Organization panel as part of the group’s response to the current monkeypox outbreak: Anne Rimoin, the Gordon-Levin Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases and Public Health, and Dr. Zunyou Wu, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Wu, a graduate of the Fielding School, has been recognized by the WHO for his work to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and Rimoin has studied monkeypox in Central Africa for two decades.
“Monkeypox is something that we know about, and something that we will learn a lot more about, but if we’ve learned anything from Zika, from H1N1, from COVID-19, (it’s that) we do have tools that can be used to be able control this virus and to get in front of it, rather than chasing behind it,” Rimoin said.
The emergency committee convened June 23 to provide views regarding the current monkeypox outbreak. Following the meeting, the WHO said the rising cases in more than 50 countries should be monitored closely, but monkeypox is not a global health emergency “at this stage.”
