#172 WHO Declares a Global Health Emergency. What Does This Mean?

On August 14th, the WHO declared a global health emergency due to the rising cases of Mpox. While this does not mean we heading into another pandemic, it's important to stay up to date. In this episode, the Divas discuss what constitutes a global health emergency, what exactly is Mpox, and how could it impact your practice. 

• CDC Mpox Response: https://bit.ly/3yNfTEC 
• CDC About Mpox: https://bit.ly/4e1gocV
• CDC Clinicians and Infection Control: https://bit.ly/3XmXsjA
• CDC Ocular Infection: https://bit.ly/3yLsJDn

                                                 https://www.thecompliancedivas.com

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome! I'm Leslie Cannum. I'm Mary Gavoni.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

I'm Linda Harvey. I'm Olivia Wan and together we are the Compliance Divas.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

On August 14th, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency due to the rising cases of MPOX, formerly known as Monkeypox. While this does not mean we are heading into another pandemic, it's important to stay up to date. In this episode, the Divas discuss what constitutes a global health emergency, exactly what is inpox, and how it could impact your practice. This is Linda Harvey. I will be your moderator for this session. As the Compliance Divas, we bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating the regulatory world to keep you on course. We invite you to subscribe to our podcast through your favorite podcast channel or on our website, thecompliancedevas.com. Any resources that we mentioned during the podcast can be found in the show notes. And we also invite you to submit questions to support at thecompliancedevas.com. And after you finish listening to this podcast, we invite you to scroll to the bottom and leave us a like or review. So as we can start on this topic, I'd like to call in our diva Leslie. And let's before we get upset or scared or nervous about or we are headed for another pandemic, Leslie, can you just describe to us what constitutes a global health emergency?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Linda, when we talk about emergency, an emergency is a situation or event that poses immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment, and demands decision and follow-up in terms of extra measures and response. And the definition of an event, uh following what you would say emergency, is the manifestation of a disease or an occurrence that creates a potential for a disease. An event can be of an infectious origin, whether it's transmitted by persons, vectors, animals, goods, foods, or through the environment, disasters, both natural and man-made, and chemical, radiologic, and nuclear origin. So an event can also be of unknown origin. Now, the World Health Organization, who is the guiding light, if you will, for the everyone, every country in the world, they actually have an emergency public health dashboard. And this dashboard is actually a platform to share information about public health events and emergencies. An interesting thing, Linda, is that this data on the dashboard is refreshed every 30 minutes. So it's accurate as the time of refreshing. What's interesting also is that rapidly detecting and responding to emergencies is essential to save lives. It's the World Health Organization's global surveillance system that picks up public health threats 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And once an event is verified, World Health Organization, often known as WHO, HWO, assesses the level of the risk and then sounds the alarms to help protect populations from the consequences of outbreaks, disasters, or conflicts with other hazards. So what you can expect when they sound the alarms within 48 hours, they grade the severity of an event. They activate incident management systems with a designated team functioning out of emergency operating centers in Geneva and in the regional and country offices. They also release funds from World Health Organization's Consistency Fund for Emergencies, deploy field teams, and activate global stockpiles of essential supplies, including personal protective equipment, medicines, and vaccines. They establish the network communication and base camps where needed, and they activate the Global Health Cluster, which is a global outbreak alert and response network and emergency medical teams. So World Health Organization is also developing new technologies to be able to detect and track new health events in more difficult settings, and early warning, alert, and response systems are also being updated. Linda, it's interesting in the United States we had an MPOX outbreak in 2022. And at that time, the total number of cases was 32,063. There were 58 deaths and also including two infants in those deaths. California, for my California listeners, there was the highest level of MOX cases at 6,160. In New York, the case count was just right behind California at 4,528. So it's important to remember that the World Health Organization will sound the alarms, but CDC also provides us information and guidance for the United States as well as a tracking system. Now the tracking system that was available in 2022 is no longer available as of January 10th of this year. It was no longer being updated due to the low transmission of MPOX plate. And I know that our uh Diva Olivia will explain what MPOX plades are. So that's where we stand with World Health Organization Emergency Alerts, Linda.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Thank you, love Leslie. That's a great detailed information about what is a global health emergency, how did it evolve? And we know that, as you mentioned, there was a number of cases back in 2022 here in the US. And importantly, right, but I understand now, and our other divas will confirm with this when they speak about different aspects of impact, that right now the main focus or the main outbreaks are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, and there's one in Europe, Sweden. So while we don't have the outbreak here in the United States, it's important to be mindful of what's happening around the world, especially since we're only four years away from the most recent pandemic. So thank you, Leslie. Now I'd like to call on our diva Olivia to talk about what exactly is Mpox and how is it different than SARS-CoV-2, and what else can you share some light about this?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Linda, the MPOX is a disease that's caused by the monkeypox virus, and the symptoms are similar to that of smallpox, but less severe. And I'm actually looking at a picture on my screen of MPOX causes these horrible lesions that resemble pus-filled blisters, which break and scab over, and they're just scabby and look very painful and red, and something we certainly don't want to contract in a dental office, if the case may be. It's actually pretty rare in the United States, but is perceived as a potential risk with international travel and so forth. There's two clades, clades meets type of MPOX that have emerged, and that is clade one and clade two. So clade two is the type responsible for that 2020 outbreak that you referred to, Linda, which is actually less severe than clade one. With the clade two, there's a 99.9% recovery. However, with clade one, it is more severe, and for those who become sick with MPOX with clade one, 10% die. So it would be a serious concern, and it's no wonder that it's been declared a global health emergency. When we think about COVID, you know, the huge pandemic scare of COVID, would MPOX turn into another pandemic? Well, we really don't think so, because it's not readily transmittable like the COVID-19 SARS virus. Because we remember COVID-19 SARS was transmitted airborne. Now, although there is that possibility that MPOX could be transmitted airborne, uh, but it it's usually transmitted through skin-to-skin contact or sexual contact. So I'm looking at this photo again on my computer screen, and both of the hands of the patient have these sores on it. So if you came in contact with those sores or clothing that had touched these sores, there's that obvious risk of transmission. But we do not anticipate at this time that MPOX would cause another lockdown. So I hope that information is helpful, Linda.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

It certainly is, Olivia. Thank you so much for drawing that distinction between those two viruses because when you hear about a global health emergency, and certainly our listeners may be reading about it on other dental news wires or just the news on TV or podcasts or whatnot that they listen to otherwise, it's important that we not panic, but just to understand what does this mean and what could be the impact for the practice. So it's a good one to know that MPOX is not typically airborne, like SARS-CoV-2, which is what made it spread so easily and so quickly. So Mary, could you help us out and just talk about, you know, if since there is a global health emergency, could there be any impact on our practices and what do you see happening, or could a case, as as Olivia mentioned, with international travel, which is exactly why the case in Sweden came up from international travel from that individual being in one of those two areas in Africa, you know, anybody could come back and bring that virus with them. So can you just address that just for us a little bit, please? Absolutely, Linda.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Um if you remember back a number of years ago when we had another respiratory infectious disease that originated in Saudi Arabia, Mars, I think is what it was called, if I remember correctly, we were told to screen patients for international travel. And that may be something that we ought to do, especially if we keep getting these health alerts to find out if any of our patients have traveled internationally. Measles is one of those alert issues for international travel. So it is possible if you have a patient who especially has traveled to the Congo where there seems to be most of the cases, and you know that from conversation with them, that you need to be, of course, on the alert for any signs or symptoms, those lesions. The one thing that could happen is those lesions can occur in the oral cavity. So that could be a way that a dental professional could have contact with those lesions. And we need to make sure that we're wearing appropriate PPE in order to protect ourselves, and that especially includes adequate eye protection. We've talked before about the need for preventing any aerosol or spatter or debris from getting up underneath our eye protection devices by wearing goggles or wearing a face shield over your safety glasses so that these droplets or viral particles cannot get into the eyes. If MPOX is, if the eyes are exposed to MPOX, then there can be all kinds of ulceration and scarring and loss of vision. So that's something we certainly wouldn't want to have happen to a dental professional. But it also means that we need to be very careful about what other kinds of infection control protocols we're following in practices, and not just for MPOX, but for other things that may be exposed to aerosols or touching, going from the oral cavity to touching. And I know one of those things that I always cringe about when I go into offices and I see the offices with blankets for patients. It's a lovely thing to give to patients, but are those blankets laundered or are they simply folded back up and used for the next patient? That can be an easy way to transmit an infection. So we need to be really, really careful about that, not just in light of MPOX, but other types of infectious diseases as well. And we will have resources in the show notes about the MPOX virus and where the infections are occurring, and also there's a great page that talks about ocular health and so what you need to do to protect yourself as a healthcare worker.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

Mary, thank you for that great information. And it reminds me of some of the things that have been going through my mind regarding MPOX. Um, you know, it's contact transmitted primarily, and I think about blankets and blankets being on patients. And I know most of our clients, I believe they all for the are laundering their blankets, usually in-house. Or and I have one client that uh buys a very inexpensive blanket and they give it to the patient. It's just something very lightweight and they don't have to worry about it. It's totally disposable, it's out of their hands. So when you think about that, you have to go back to what the bloodborne pathogen standard says about laundering, you know, handling contaminated laundry in a dental practice. It's, you know, so making sure that you're wearing PPE when you're handling that patient blanket. You know, you put on a pair of clean gloves and not the contaminated gloves that you were using for the patient care in the mouth because it is contaminated. Whether you see lesions on a patient or not, we don't know what else they may have. So it's important to be mindful of those things. So and thank you for mentioning all the great resources that we will provide in the show notes today because I think it's important that all of our listeners be aware of the different things that are happening on a global uh stage so we can be staying up to date with how to best protect ourselves and our practices. Mary, did you want to say something about the other fifth disease real quick?

unknown 14:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

I had a thought on that.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Yes, I would, Linda. Thank you. On August 13th, just last week, um, we got another health alert network advisory from the CDC about human parvovirus B19. Um, I always think of parvovirus and dogs, um, and really had to go back and and reread all this information to jog my memory that this is fifth disease. And so you may see um people with a very characteristic um sign of fifth disease, which they call a slapped cheek look. So they have very red cheeks, and um children are the most susceptible to fifth disease, and it it'll spread in in classrooms, but it certainly could be spread in a dental practice as well. So they may have this facial rash, they may also have um some respiratory symptoms. So, again, all the reason to be screening for patients with um respiratory symptoms, and and if you see that rash, think of the possibility of fifth disease, and also be very um concerned that the effects on pregnant women can be very devastating. It can actually cause the possibility of miscarriage. So if it happened to be a team member or another patient who was pregnant, we need to be very careful about making sure that we're making notations in our health histories and screening patients and following good hand hygiene and all the other things that we do.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

So well said. It's important for all the things we do, including hand hygiene, proper PPE, and following all those infection control guidelines. So, Mary, from what I've read about the fifth disease, is that it is highly contagious. So when you see a patient come in, particularly you mentioned children, and they've got those cute little rosy cheeks, we want to be maybe asking the parent, you know, something about that because it may not be. And they may think it's rosacea or some other allergy or skin situation, and they don't even realize that it's the fifth disease. And so just to clarify for our listeners, we are saying fifth as in the number five, the fifth disease. It is a little different, so just to kind of get familiar with that. Divas, thank you for helping to update and educate our listeners today on the latest global health emergency and the fifth disease. It's important, uh listeners, that we stay up to date with the things that are happening, not only within our communities and in our country, but globally as well. And all the resources that we talked about today will be in the show notes for you. At the Compliance Divas, we bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating the regulatory world to keep you on course. We invite you to subscribe to our podcast through your favorite podcast channel or on our website, thekompliancedivas.com. We also invite your questions to be submitted to support at the compliancedevas.com. And don't forget to scroll down at the bottom of your podcast app and leave us a review today. We'd love to hear from you. And we'll see you next time.