Updating reproduction number estimates for mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo using surveillance data

Incidence of human mpox has been increasing in West and Central Africa, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where monkeypox virus (MPXV) is endemic. Most estimates of the pathogen’s transmissibility in DRC are based on data from the 1980s. Amid the global 2022 mpox outbreak, new estimates are needed to characterize the virus’ epidemic potential and inform outbreak control strategies. We used the R package vimes to identify clusters of laboratory-confirmed mpox cases in Tshuapa Province, DRC. Cases with both temporal and spatial data were assigned to clusters based on the disease’s serial interval and spatial kernel. We used the size of the clusters to infer the effective reproduction number, R t , and the rate of zoonotic spillover of MPXV into the human population. Out of 1,463 confirmed mpox cases reported in Tshuapa Province between 2013 and 2017, 878 had both date of symptom onset and a location with geographic coordinates. Results include an estimated R t of 0.82 (95% CI: 0.79 – 0.85) and a rate of 132 (95% CI: 122 – 143) spillovers per year assuming a reporting rate of 0.25. This estimate of R t is larger compared to most previous estimates. One potential explanation for this result is that R t could have increased in DRC over time due to declining population-level immunity conferred by smallpox vaccination, which was discontinued around 1982. R t could be overestimated if our assumption of one spillover event per cluster does not hold. Our results are consistent with increased transmissibility of MPXV in Tshuapa Province.