WHO

In its weekly report on the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said deaths fell by 22% in the past week, at just over 11,000 reported worldwide.

Even though the number of weekly reported deaths have plummeted more than 80% since February, one person still dies with COVID every 44 seconds.

Subsequent variants of monkeypox will be named using Roman numerals for the clade, and lowercase letters for the subclade.

WHO said the number of new cases fell 35% in Europe but increased about 20% in the Western Pacific . Deaths rose 44% in the Western Pacific and 26% in the Middle East, while falling about a quarter in Europe.

A report from WHO and UNICEF states that last year, 25 million children missed out on one or more "lifesaving vaccines" — for diseases like tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, polio and yellow fever.

The action comes as WHO convenes its emergency committee to consider if the outbreak of monkeypox - mostly in Europe - warrants being declared a global emergency.

To some health experts, the initiative potentially misses the opportunity to control monkeypox virus in the African countries where it’s infected people for decades.

The World Health Organization recommended in its strongest terms yet that a deeper probe is needed into whether a lab accident may be to blame.

Symptoms that doctors were taught about in medical school are not necessarily indicative of the cases of 2022. It can be much more subtle — and look a lot like other diseases.

The agency says it received reports of at least 169 cases of “acute hepatitis of unknown origin” from a dozen countries but did not confirm where the fatality occurred.