As health authorities in Europe and elsewhere roll out vaccines and drugs to stamp out the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa, some doctors acknowledge an ugly reality: The resources to slow the disease's spread have long been available, just not to the Africans who have dealt with it for decades.

Countries including Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Israel and Australia have reported more than 250 monkeypox cases, many apparently tied to sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe. No deaths have been reported.

Dozens of doctors, nurses and medical personnel rallied Thursday outside the Central Bank in Beirut after declaring a two-day general strike to protest rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.

The strike was declared by two medical professionals' unions -- The Syndicates of Doctors in Beirut and the North and the Syndicate of Private Hospital Owners -- which say they could no longer put up with Central Bank policies that have allowed banks to impose random capital controls and other restrictions.

The monkeypox outbreaks in non-endemic countries can be contained and human-to-human transmission of the virus stopped, the World Health Organization said Monday.

The EU health agency ECDC said Monday the risk that the rare disease monkeypox would spread widely among the general population was "very low", though high for certain groups.

A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of the rare disease monkeypox in developed countries as "a random event" that might be explained by risky sexual behavior at two recent mass events in Europe.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO's emergencies department, said the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves held in Spain and Belgium. Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.

A Lebanese doctor claimed Monday that there are at least two cases of monkeypox in Lebanon, as the Health Ministry confirmed that a sample from a suspected monkeypox patient has been sent to France for testing.

The doctor, Mohammed Fahmi Kharroub, a specialist in family medicine and chronic illnesses, told al-Jadeed TV in a live interview that he has diagnosed a patient in Lebanon with monkeypox and that he has been told about “another case in south Lebanon.”

Israel has confirmed its first case of monkeypox, joining several European and North American countries in detecting the disease endemic to parts of Africa.

Several cases of monkeypox have been detected in North America and Europe since early May, sparking concern that the disease, endemic in parts of Africa, is spreading.

Most people recover within several weeks and monkeypox has only been fatal in rare cases.

Germany's top court said Thursday it has approved rules requiring health workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Federal Constitutional Court announced that it had rejected complaints against the measure, arguing that the importance of protecting vulnerable people in hospitals and care homes outweighs any infringement of health workers' rights.

North Korea on Thursday reported 262,270 more suspected COVID-19 cases as its pandemic caseload neared 2 million — a week after the country acknowledged the outbreak and scrambled to slow infections in its unvaccinated population.

The country is also trying to prevent its fragile economy from deteriorating further, but the outbreak could be worse than officially reported since the country lacks virus tests and other health care resources and may be underreporting deaths to soften the political impact on authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un.