The World Health Organization declared that mpox no longer constitutes a global health emergency on Thursday, almost exactly a year after the disease formerly known as monkeypox started spreading across the world.

Following falling cases numbers, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online press conference he was "pleased to declare" that he had accepted the advice of the UN agency's emergency committee on mpox to lift its highest level of alarm.

The WHO declared mpox, previously known as monkeypox, a public health emergency of international concern in July 2022 "an extraordinary event" that constitutes a "public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease” and “to potentially require a coordinated international response."