GENEVA (Reuters) -The World Health Organization will convene a meeting of its Emergency Committee next week to determine whether mpox remains a global health crisis, it said in a statement on Monday.

In August, the disease which continues to spread in Africa was classified by the U.N. health body as a public health emergency of international concern, which represents the highest form of alert. This followed the spread of a new variant of the virus, called clade Ib, in parts of the continent.

There have been 46,794 confirmed and suspected cases in Africa this year through Nov. 3, including 1,081 deaths, the WHO said in a report issues on Monday. The most affected country is the Democratic Republic of Congo, followed by Burundi and Uganda, it said.

Mpox can spread through close contact. Usually mild, it is fatal in rare cases. It causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body. Initial vaccine doses were allocated this month for the 9 African countries hardest hit.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, Editing by Friederike Heine)