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Monkeypox/Mpox research highlights

© NIAID

© NIAID

On 23 July 2022, the global mpox outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization. Relevant research published in BMC journals, as well as additional commentary on this topic, is included below. 


Following a series of consultations with global experts, WHO will begin using a new preferred term “mpox” as a synonym for "monkeypox". Both names will be used simultaneously for one year while “monkeypox” is phased out. WHO, 28 November 2022

BMC, as part of Springer Nature, encourages early sharing of research submitted to all our journals through preprints, and our In Review preprint service is available for many journals. We strongly urge authors submitting articles related to this emergency to BMC journals to share underlying interim and final research datasets relating to the outbreak as rapidly and widely as possible, including with public health and research communities and the WHO.


  1. The methodology described in previous literature for Monkeypox virus (MPXV) sequencing shows low efficiency when using metagenomic approaches. The aim of the present study was to evaluate a new fine-tuned method ...

    Authors: Pablo Aja-Macaya, Soraya Rumbo-Feal, Margarita Poza, Angelina Cañizares, Juan A. Vallejo and Germán Bou
    Citation: BMC Genomics 2023 24:29
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. Beginning May 7, 2022, multiple nations reported an unprecedented surge in monkeypox cases. Unlike past outbreaks, differences in affected populations, transmission mode, and clinical characteristics have been...

    Authors: Amanda Bleichrodt, Sushma Dahal, Kevin Maloney, Lisa Casanova, Ruiyan Luo and Gerardo Chowell
    Citation: BMC Medicine 2023 21:19
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  4. The World Health Organization declared monkeypox as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on July 23, 2022. As of July 25th, 2022, there were 16,016 laboratory-confirmed cases reported worldwide w...

    Authors: Chang Chee Tao, Xin-Jie Lim, Awatef Amer Nordin, Chern Choong Thum, Sondi Sararaks, Kalaiarasu Periasamy and Philip Rajan
    Citation: Tropical Medicine and Health 2022 50:87
    Content type: Short Report Published on:

  5. Authors: Anges Yadouleton, Martin Faye, Carine Tchibozo, Mariam Oke, Oumar Faye, Thierry Lawale, Eric Denon, René Keke, Ange Dossou, Alban Zohoun, Francis Dossou, Moussa Moise Diagne, Sourakou Salifou, Khadija Leila Diatta, Mignane Ndiaye, Safietou Sankhe…
    Citation: Military Medical Research 2022 9:63
    Content type: Letter to the Editor Published on:

  7. Monkeypox (MPX) was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO), as of July 23rd, 2022. Fake news spread on social media has already surfaced and contributed...

    Authors: Ramadan Abdelmoez Farahat, Michael G. Head, Samar Tharwat, Yasmeen Alabdallat, Mohammad Yasir Essar, Basel Abdelazeem and Mounir Ould Setti
    Citation: Tropical Medicine and Health 2022 50:63
    Content type: Letter to the Editor Published on:

  8. A multicountry monkeypox disease (MPX) outbreak began in May 2022 in Europe, leading to the assessment as a potential Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on June 23, 2022. Some observation...

    Authors: Vicente A. Benites-Zapata, Juan R. Ulloque-Badaracco, Esteban A. Alarcon-Braga, Enrique A. Hernandez-Bustamante, Melany D. Mosquera-Rojas, D. Katterine Bonilla-Aldana and Alfonso J. Rodriguez-Morales
    Citation: Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials 2022 21:36
    Content type: Review Published on:

  9. Monkeypox has a very prominent regional epidemic. It has been confined to Western and Central African countries. Sporadic cases found in countries outside Africa generally have a history of sojourn in endemic ...

    Authors: Xiaoning Liu, Zheng Zhu, Yun He, Jia Wen Lim, Bethany Lane, Hui Wang, Qiaoli Peng, Liqin Sun and Hongzhou Lu
    Citation: Infectious Diseases of Poverty 2022 11:84
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  14. Poxviruses comprise many members that infect both vertebrate and invertebrate animals, including humans. Despite the eradication of the historically notorious smallpox, poxviruses remain significant public hea...

    Authors: Zhilong Yang, Mark Gray and Lake Winter
    Citation: Cell & Bioscience 2021 11:96
    Content type: Review Published on:

  16. The rapid and reliable detection of infectious agents is one of the most challenging tasks in scenarios lacking well-equipped laboratory infrastructure, like diagnostics in rural areas of developing countries....

    Authors: Daniel Stern, Victoria A. Olson, Scott K. Smith, Marko Pietraszczyk, Lilija Miller, Peter Miethe, Brigitte G. Dorner and Andreas Nitsche
    Citation: Virology Journal 2016 13:207
    Content type: Methodology Published on:

  17. Poxviruses constitute one of the largest and most complex animal virus families known. The notorious smallpox disease has been eradicated and the virus contained, but its simian sister, monkeypox is an emergin...

    Authors: Kun Zhao, Robert M. Wohlhueter and Yu Li
    Citation: BMC Genomics 2016 17(Suppl 5):497
    Content type: Research Published on:

    This article is part of a Supplement: Volume 17 Supplement 5

  18. Animal-borne orthopoxviruses, like monkeypox, vaccinia and the closely related cowpox virus, are all capable of causing zoonotic infections in humans, representing a potential threat to human health. The disea...

    Authors: Daniel Bourquain, Piotr Wojtek Dabrowski and Andreas Nitsche
    Citation: Virology Journal 2013 10:61
    Content type: Research Published on:

  19. A33 is a type II integral membrane protein expressed on the extracellular enveloped form of vaccinia virus (VACV). Passive transfer of A33-directed monoclonal antibodies or vaccination with an A33 subunit vacc...

    Authors: Yong He, Yonggang Wang, Evi B Struble, Pei Zhang, Soma Chowdhury, Jennifer L Reed, Michael Kennedy, Dorothy E Scott and Robert W Fisher
    Citation: Virology Journal 2012 9:217
    Content type: Research Published on:

  20. Maps of disease occurrences and GIS-based models of disease transmission risk are increasingly common, and both rely on georeferenced diseases data. Automated methods for georeferencing disease data have been ...

    Authors: R Ryan Lash, Darin S Carroll, Christine M Hughes, Yoshinori Nakazawa, Kevin Karem, Inger K Damon and A Townsend Peterson
    Citation: International Journal of Health Geographics 2012 11:23
    Content type: Methodology Published on:

  21. The EB peptide is a 20-mer that was previously shown to have broad spectrum in vitro activity against several unrelated viruses, including highly pathogenic avian influenza, herpes simplex virus type I, and vacci...

    Authors: Sharon E Altmann, Curtis R Brandt, Peter B Jahrling and Joseph E Blaney
    Citation: Virology Journal 2012 9:6
    Content type: Short report Published on:

  22. The Orthopoxvirus genus contains numerous virus species that are capable of causing disease in humans, including variola virus (the etiological agent of smallpox), monkeypox virus, cowpox virus, and vaccinia viru...

    Authors: Sara C Johnston, Kenny L Lin, John H Connor, Gordon Ruthel, Arthur Goff and Lisa E Hensley
    Citation: Virology Journal 2012 9:5
    Content type: Research Published on:

  23. Orthopoxviruses, including variola virus, vaccinia virus, and monkeypox virus, have previously been documented in humans in West Africa, however, no cases of human orthopoxvirus infection have been reported in...

    Authors: Adam MacNeil, Jason Abel, Mary G Reynolds, RR Lash, Richard Fonnie, Lansana D Kanneh, Willie Robert, Victor K Lungay, Augustine Goba, Lina M Moses, Inger K Damon, Kevin Karem and Daniel G Bausch
    Citation: BMC Research Notes 2011 4:465
    Content type: Short Report Published on:

  24. Previously we demonstrated that DNA vaccination of nonhuman primates (NHP) with a small subset of vaccinia virus (VACV) immunogens (L1, A27, A33, B5) protects against lethal monkeypox virus challenge. The L1 a...

    Authors: Joseph W Golden, Marina Zaitseva, Senta Kapnick, Robert W Fisher, Malgorzata G Mikolajczyk, John Ballantyne, Hana Golding and Jay W Hooper
    Citation: Virology Journal 2011 8:441
    Content type: Research Published on:

  25. Increasing infections with Monkeypox and Cowpox viruses pose a continuous and growing threat to human health. The standard method for detecting poxvirus neutralizing antibodies is the plaque-reduction neutrali...

    Authors: Marit Kramski, Anna Drozd, Gregor F Lichtfuss, Piotr W Dabrowski and Heinz Ellerbrok
    Citation: Virology Journal 2011 8:139
    Content type: Methodology Published on:

  26. Monkeypox virus (MPV) is a zoonotic Orthopoxvirus and a potential biothreat agent that causes human disease with varying morbidity and mortality. Members of the Orthopoxvirus genus have been shown to suppress ...

    Authors: Abdulnaser Alkhalil, Rasha Hammamieh, Justin Hardick, Mohamed Ait Ichou, Marti Jett and Sofi Ibrahim
    Citation: Virology Journal 2010 7:173
    Content type: Research Published on:

  28. In order to determine how best to tailor outreach messages about poxvirus diagnosis and infection control for health practitioners, we surveyed infectious disease physicians in the Infectious Diseases Society ...

    Authors: Christine M Hughes, Edith R Lederman, Mary G Reynolds, Inger K Damon, R Ryan Lash, Susan E Beekmann and Philip M Polgreen
    Citation: BMC Research Notes 2010 3:46
    Content type: Short Report Published on:

  29. The Orthopoxvirus genus of Poxviridae family is comprised of several human pathogens, including cowpox (CPXV), Vaccinia (VACV), monkeypox (MPV) and Variola (VARV) viruses. Species of this virus genus cause human ...

    Authors: Abdulnaser Alkhalil, Sarah Strand, Eric Mucker, John W Huggins, Peter B Jahrling and Sofi M Ibrahim
    Citation: Virology Journal 2009 6:188
    Content type: Research Published on:

  30. Ecological niche modeling is a method for estimation of species distributions based on certain ecological parameters. Thus far, empirical determination of significant differences between independently generate...

    Authors: Rebecca S Levine, Krista L Yorita, Matthew C Walsh and Mary G Reynolds
    Citation: International Journal of Health Geographics 2009 8:7
    Content type: Methodology Published on: