Chinese health expert amends monkeypox advisory after online backlash

Name: WHO declares monkeypox a global health emergency as the agency raises its highest-level alert
Uploaded: 2022-09-19T14:22:05.000Z
Duration: 2 min 12 s
Description: WHO declares monkeypox a global health emergency as the agency raises its highest-level alert

Epidemiologist Wu Zunyou refines his advice after warning earlier against direct skin contact with foreigners and returnees from abroad

CDC says China’s first patient with the disease visited Germany and Spain

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Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, has revised his advice for monkeypox prevention. Photo: Getty Images

Guo Rui

Published: 10:22pm, 19 Sep 2022Updated: 11:06pm, 19 Sep 2022

Top Chinese epidemiologist Wu Zunyou has revised his advisory about monkeypox prevention after his earlier comments came under fire for being “racist and discriminatory”.

On his Weibo account on Saturday, Wu urged people to avoid “direct skin-to-skin contact” with foreigners or recent returnees from abroad to avoid contracting the disease.

The comments drew criticism on Chinese social media where his advice was ridiculed as racist and inappropriate.

The advisory came a day after China reported its first monkeypox case – a patient who had flown into Chongqing from Germany and was in quarantine when he was diagnosed.

02:12

WHO declares monkeypox a global health emergency as the agency raises its highest-level alert

Wu amended his advice on Monday, asking people to avoid “intimate direct skin-to-skin contact” with foreigners or returnees from countries and regions where monkeypox outbreaks had been reported.

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