According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the viral disease, mpox is now a “public health emergency of international concern.” As such, it joins other human viruses that have demonstrated the ability to spread within the wider human population including Ebola, and Coronaviruses (COVID-19). The rapidity and ubiquity of modern international travel undoubtedly facilitates the spread of infectious disease and will be a complicating factor in the current pattern of mpox infection.

Mpox is the name of the infection caused by the monkeypox virus, a type of poxvirus. Its traditional habitat is tropical regions of Central and West Africa but at the time of writing, over thirty countries in Africa had reported mpox cases or were considered ‘high risk’ of being included in the outbreak, including neighbouring countries where mpox has never been seen before. The most severe outbreak has been seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo with more than 14,000 reported cases and 524 deaths since the start of this year. As with all infectious disease, the true number of cases will be higher than reported figures.

Why is this virus spreading? Virologists are not yet sure. A new variant of the virus, clade 1b, is clearly spreading geographically and is largely responsible for the increase in number of reported cases, perhaps due to novel mechanisms of transmission. The traditional form of mpox, clade 1, is typically associated with eating infected bushmeat. Clade 1b is known to spread by person to person transmission, sexual contact and via contaminated fomites (bedding, towels, surfaces, etc.).

Part 2 of this news article considers measures to counteract the spread of mpox including vaccination and biosecurity.