Page:Interim Staff Report on Investigation into Risky MPXV Experiment at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.pdf/11



Mpox, the disease caused by infection with the MPVX, has become an increasing epidemic and pandemic threat. Of concern is the ongoing clade I mpox epidemic in Kamituga, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and some of its neighboring countries which has infected almost 20,000 people and killed 975 (4.9 percent), both numbers almost certainly represent a signiﬁcant undercounting of cases and deaths.

The MPVX threat and its transmission dynamics are not yet fully understood. As noted by C. Raina MacIntyre, an Australian epidemiologist and Professor of Global Biosecurity, “the predominance of children in the DRC epidemic suggests transmission may be respiratory. In fact, smallpox and mpox are respiratory viruses, and mpox has been identiﬁed in ambient air […]. If the more pathogenic clade I mpox becomes highly transmissible between humans, it may pose a greater pandemic threat than clade IIb.” MacIntyre later added, “If an emerging orthopoxvirus such as clade I mpox has an R0 of >1, it has epidemic and therefore pandemic potential.”