Mpox
Mpox is an infectious disease spread through close contact with contagious individuals or infected animals. Most people recover fully, but in some cases, it can lead to severe illness or death.
Vaccination against smallpox offers some degree of protection against mpox. Smallpox was eradicated in 1980, so vaccination rates against it have dropped since then. This means the protection it provided against mpox has diminished, leading to a gradual increase in cases in West and Central Africa.1
In May 2022, a notable outbreak of mpox spread across the world. This global outbreak was primarily, but not exclusively, driven through transmission via sexual contact of men who have sex with men.2 The combination of public health campaigns, availability of vaccines, and actions by impacted communities led to fewer infections globally.
Since 2023, an epidemic of a new variant of mpox, known as clade 1b, began in Central Africa. In August 2024, the WHO declared this new mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. However, a lack of local diagnostic infrastructure means suspected mpox cases are often not confirmed.
We maintain a data explorer on this page, which lets you explore confirmed cases and deaths published by the World Health Organization and suspected cases reported by the Africa CDC.
Endnotes
Simpson K, Heymann D, Brown CS, Edmunds WJ, Elsgaard J, Fine P, et al. Human monkeypox — After 40 years, an unintended consequence of smallpox eradication. Vaccine. 2020;38(33):5077–5081
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Edouard Mathieu, Fiona Spooner, Saloni Dattani, Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2022) - “Mpox” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/mpox' [Online Resource]
BibTeX citation
@article{owid-mpox,
author = {Edouard Mathieu and Fiona Spooner and Saloni Dattani and Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser},
title = {Mpox},
journal = {Our World in Data},
year = {2022},
note = {https://ourworldindata.org/mpox}
}
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