Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2022 December, 258(4)

Invited Review

The Historical Epidemiology of Human Monkeypox: A Review of Evidence from the 1970 Emergence to the 2022 Outbreak

Fatemeh Sadat Rahimi,1 Siamak Afaghi,2 Farzad Esmaeili Tarki,3 Kasra Moeinabadi-Bidgoli,4 Maryam Golmohammadi,3 Nasser Malekpour Alamdari5 and Sara Besharat6

1Chronic Respiratory Diseases Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases, Masih Daneshvari Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2Prevention of Metabolic Disorders Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
3Department of Infectious Diseases, Loghman Hakim Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
4Basic and Molecular Epidemiology of Gastroenterology Disorders Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
5Clinical Research and Development Center, Department of Surgery, Shahid Modarres Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
6Department of Radiology, Shahid Labbafinezhad Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Human Monkeypox (HMPX) outbreak in the year 2022 occurs in many countries outside of the African regions, a common location of such outbreaks, with a considerable rate of human-to-human transmission, which was an uncommon route of infection before. The epidemiological reports also represent a sharping pace of infection spreading between communities rather than in previous outbreaks as the following pace of afflictions is unpredictable. Also, the cautions regarding the sexually transmitted infection of the such virus have been raised in this outbreak. Further, the main reservoirs of the recent outbreaks are yet to be revealed. As a consequence, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the 2022 HMPX outbreak as an “Atypical” phenomenon compared to its previous characteristics. To better recognize the properties of this outbreak, herein we systematically described and compared the historical evidence of monkeypox virus outbreaks in the aspects of epidemiological, clinical, and molecular evolutions since its emergence, as well as an explanation of the previous investigations and considerations of WHO and other international health societies over time. The history of human and monkeypox virus interaction during the past 64 years provides viewpoints on preventing strategies and assessing the present and potential future hazards of health implications.

Keywords —— epidemiology; monkeypox virus; orthopoxvirus

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med 2022, 258, 243-255.

Correspondence: Farzad Esmaeili Tarki, M.D., M.P.H., Department of Infectious Diseases, Loghman Hakim Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, No. 24, Parvaneh Street, Velenjak, Tehran P.O. Box 19395-4763, Iran.

e-mail: Farzad.esmaeili.t@sbmu.ac.ir