Biological characteristics, biosafety prevention and control strategies for the 2022 multi-country outbreak of monkeypox

Chudan Liang; Jun Qian; Linna Liu

doi:10.1016/j.bsheal.2022.11.001

Biological characteristics, biosafety prevention and control strategies for the 2022 multi-country outbreak of monkeypox

Biosaf Health. 2022 Dec;4(6):376-385. doi: 10.1016/j.bsheal.2022.11.001. Epub 2022 Nov 9.

Authors

Chudan Liang^{1

2}, Jun Qian^{1

2}, Linna Liu³

Affiliations

¹ Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
² Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Control (Sun Yat-sen University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510030, China.
³ Guangzhou Eighth People's Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510440, China.

Abstract

Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV), which is a potential biological warfare agent of bioterrorism and poses the greatest threat to the world's public biosafety and health after variola virus (VARV). While the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has not ended yet, monkeypox is spreading menacingly. The first case of monkeypox in a nonendemic country was confirmed on May 6^th, 2022, while the first imported case from Asia was found on June 21^st. There were more than 16 thousand reported cases as of July 23^rd, the day the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the global monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) at the same level as smallpox and COVID-19; while there were more than 53 thousand cases as of September 1^st. Therefore, we will propose relevant biosafety prevention and control strategies after analyzing the etiology of the 2022 multi-country monkeypox outbreak from the biological feature, transmissibility, epidemic, and variability of MPXV.

Keywords: Biological characteristics; Biosafety strategy; Monkeypox virus; Re-emerging infectious disease.

Publication types

Review