The monkeypox outbreak has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization.

The classification is the highest alert that the WHO can issue and follows a worldwide upsurge in cases. It came at the end of the second meeting of the WHO's emergency committee on the virus.

More than 16,000 cases have now been reported from 75 countries, said WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. There had been five deaths so far as a result of the outbreak, he added.

There are only two other such health emergencies at present - the coronavirus pandemic and the continuing effort to eradicate polio. Dr Tedros said the emergency committee had been unable to reach a consensus on whether the monkeypox outbreak should be classified as a global health emergency. However, he said the outbreak had spread around the world rapidly and he had decided that it was indeed of international concern.

Too little was understood about the new modes of transmission which had allowed it to spread, said Dr Tedros. "The WHO's assessment is that the risk of monkeypox is moderate globally and in all regions, except in the European region, where we assess the risk as high," he added.

There was also a clear risk of further international spread, although the risk of interference with international traffic remained low for the moment, he said. Dr Tedros said the declaration would help speed up the development of vaccines and the implementation of measures to limit the spread of the virus.

Ivory Coast’s first Ebola case since 1994 was discovered over the weekend in an 18-year-old Guinean woman.

Guinean authorities say 58 people have been confined to their homes after being identified as contacts of a woman who contracted the Ebola virus.

The Ebola case was discovered in Ivory Coast in an 18-year-old Guinean woman who had travelled by bus from Labe, Guinea, a journey of some 1,500km (930 miles).

It was Ivory Coast’s first known case of the disease since 1994.

Ebola is often deadly, causing severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding. It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.

The discovery in Ivory Coast came nearly two months after the United Nations’ health agency declared an end to Guinea’s second Ebola outbreak, which started last year and killed 12 people.