The Roles of Unrecognized Mpox Cases, Contact Isolation and Vaccination in Determining Epidemic Size in Belgium: A Modeling Study

Christophe Van Dijck; Niel Hens; Chris Kenyon; Achilleas Tsoumanis

doi:10.1093/cid/ciac723

The Roles of Unrecognized Mpox Cases, Contact Isolation and Vaccination in Determining Epidemic Size in Belgium: A Modeling Study

Clin Infect Dis. 2023 Feb 8;76(3):e1421-e1423. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciac723.

Authors

Christophe Van Dijck^{1

2}, Niel Hens^{3

4}, Chris Kenyon^{1

5}, Achilleas Tsoumanis^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
² Laboratory of Medical Microbiology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
³ Centre for Health Economic Research and Modeling Infectious Diseases, Vaccine, and Infectious Disease Institute (VAXINFECTIO), University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
⁴ Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and Statistical Bioinformatics, Data Science Institute, Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium.
⁵ Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and HIV Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

PMID: 36052546
DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciac723

Abstract

We used a network model to simulate a mpox epidemic among men who have sex with men. Our findings suggest that unrecognized infections have an important impact on the epidemic, and that vaccination of individuals at highest risk of infection reduces epidemic size more than post-exposure vaccination of sexual partners.

Keywords: MSM; mathematical model; mpox; outbreak; vaccination.

MeSH terms

Belgium / epidemiology
Homosexuality, Male*
Humans
Male
Mpox (monkeypox)* / epidemiology
Mpox (monkeypox)* / prevention & control
Sexual Partners
Sexual and Gender Minorities*
Vaccination