In Washington, the federal government is continuing to monitor the response to monkeypox and will use it to consider whether to declare the outbreak a public health emergency, US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday. “We will weigh any decision on declaring a public health emergency based on the responses we’re seeing throughout the country. Bottom line is, we need to stay ahead of it and be able to end this outbreak,” he said. Former US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned earlier this month it may be too late to contain the outbreak, telling CBS, “The window for getting control of this and containing it probably has closed.”Last weekend, the World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern after convening its second emergency committee on the issue. WHO defines a public health emergency of international concern as “an extraordinary event” which constitutes a “public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease” and “to potentially require a coordinated international response.”