Smallpox becomes a global health emergency for the second time in 2024
A Red Cross worker sprays chlorine-based disinfectant in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in August 2024.
Moise Casereca/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Smallpox spread through parts of east, west and central Africa in 2024, prompting the World Health Organization to declare it a public health emergency of international concern in August. This came just over a year after it declared the end of a previous smallpox emergency, and it is the first time that the World Health Organization has announced two successive alerts regarding the same infection.
The emergency that ended in 2023 was driven by the IIb strain of the smallpox virus, formerly known as…