美国华盛顿大学Miguel I. Paredes等研究人员发现，未被发现的传播和广泛的本地传播推动2022年猴痘病毒的流行。2024年2月29日，国际知名学术期刊《细胞》在线发表了这一成果。

为了研究全球猴痘传播情况以及与控制传播相关的人群水平变化，研究人员建立了系统地理学和系统动力学模型，以分析来自全球五个地区的猴痘基因组以及空中交通和流行病学数据。模型揭示了检测前的社区传播、整个流行过程中病例报告的变化以及传播的高度异质性。研究人员发现，在最初传播后，病毒的引入在延长传播时间方面作用有限，这表明旅行禁令的影响很小。

研究人员发现，在美国超过10%的高危人群获得疫苗免疫力之前，猴痘在北美的传播就已经开始下降。这些研究结果凸显了对新发传染病进行更广泛的常规标本筛查监测以及联合整合基因组学和流行病学信息以尽早控制疫情的重要性。

据了解，世界卫生组织于2022年7月宣布猴痘为国际关注的突发公共卫生事件。

附：英文原文

Title: Underdetected dispersal and extensive local transmission drove the 2022 mpox epidemic

Author: Miguel I. Paredes, Nashwa Ahmed, Marlin Figgins, Vittoria Colizza, Philippe Lemey, John T. McCrone, Nicola Müller, Cécile Tran-Kiem, Trevor Bedford

Issue&Volume: 2024-02-29

Abstract: The World Health Organization declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern in July 2022. To investigate global mpox transmission and population-level changes associated with controlling spread, we built phylogeographic and phylodynamic models to analyze MPXV genomes from five global regions together with air traffic and epidemiological data. Our models reveal community transmission prior to detection, changes in case reporting throughout the epidemic, and a large degree of transmission heterogeneity. We find that viral introductions played a limited role in prolonging spread after initial dissemination, suggesting that travel bans would have had only a minor impact. We find that mpox transmission in North America began declining before more than 10% of high-risk individuals in the USA had vaccine-induced immunity. Our findings highlight the importance of broader routine specimen screening surveillance for emerging infectious diseases and of joint integration of genomic and epidemiological information for early outbreak control.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.02.003

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00124-7