Updating Reproduction Number Estimates for Mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo Using Surveillance Data.

ABSTRACT: Incidence of human monkeypox (mpox) has been increasing in West and Central Africa, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where monkeypox virus (MPXV) is endemic. Most estimates of the pathogen's transmissibility in the DRC are based on data from the 1980s. Amid the global 2022 mpox outbreak, new estimates are needed to characterize the virus' epidemic potential and inform outbreak control strategies. We used the R package vimes to identify clusters of laboratory-confirmed mpox cases in Tshuapa Province, DRC. Cases with both temporal and spatial data were assigned to clusters based on the disease's serial interval and spatial kernel. We used the size of the clusters to infer the effective reproduction number, Rt, and the rate of zoonotic spillover of MPXV into the human popu

SUBMITTER: Charniga K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10919191 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature