Monkeypox: a review of the 2022 outbreak

In May 2022, the World Health Organisation declared a multi-country monkeypox outbreak in non-endemic countries following cases reported from 12 member states that were not endemic for monkeypox virus.

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The virology, epidemiology, transmission, incubation and aspects of infection control are described. Clinical features of previous and current outbreaks are described, with growing observations that the current outbreak presents with clinical features distinct from previous outbreaks.

There are variations in clinical presentations seen in the current outbreak that have not been seen in prior outbreaks. More research is needed to investigate the reasons for these differences.

The higher numbers of HIV-positive patients in the current outbreak has allowed better description of the disease in patients co-infected with HIV and monkeypox. The absence of more severe symptoms in HIV-positive patients in the current outbreak could possibly be due to the fact that most of these patients had well-controlled HIV, although further characterization of this cohort of patients would be useful.

Current treatment and vaccination options have been extrapolated from studies of other Orthopox viruses. There remains a need for more data on the safety and efficacy of these options in the context of monkeypox infections.