The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) under the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) — the WHO’s highest-level alert.

This open knowledge-sharing community is in place to support research teams and encourage local research to address the pressing gaps in evidence. New data is needed to understand transmission, severity of disease, and longevity, to support vaccine development and testing, better detection, and diagnosis. Social science also strongly needs to support public health education, awareness, and detection to improve access to care and slow transmission.

In this area, you will find the latest updates/resources to support your research from across the network as well as trusted sources of further information from WHO and other organisations. Please check back here regularly as more resources and tools are added. 

  

    

    


Interim guidance on social and behavioural research for the mpox public health response

This interim guidance aims to clarify standards for high-quality, ethical, social and behavioural research to strengthen the public health response to the ongoing mpox PHEIC for community protection. The guidance is particularly relevant to rapid research that aims to inform near- to real-time decision-making and action but is equally applicable to longer-term research that may be critical for informing future outbreak preparedness and response.

Download the guidance document [pdf 3.9mb]


Mpox Testing Strategy, November 2024

This testing strategy for mpox is a guide for stakeholders supporting the mpox response including Ministries of Health and other Government agencies, national mpox response task-forces, funding and implementing agencies, public health experts, epidemiologists, front-line healthcare service providers including clinicians, nurses, laboratory professionals, community healthcare workers and others involved in outbreak preparedness and response activities for enhanced community protection.

Download the strategy [pdf 3.33mb]

Mpox Global Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan Mpox Continental Preparedness and Response Plan for Africa
Strategic framework for enhancing prevention and control of mpox 2024–2027 Ongoing mpox outbreak in Kamituga, South Kivu province, associated with monkeypox virus of a novel Clade I sub-lineage, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2024 

Mpox clade Ib and clade IIb outbreak: epidemiological overview
5 June 2025

Current data regarding mpox clade Ib and clade IIb cases within the United Kingdom. Earlier reports spanning the period from June 2022 through January 2025 contain details exclusively on clade IIb cases.

WHO Director-General declares mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern
 14 August 2024

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has determined that the upsurge of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and a growing number of countries in Africa constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR).

New mpox strain mutating faster than expected, and other top health stories
30 August 2024 - World Economic Forum 

The new mpox strain spreading from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is mutating faster than expected, particularly in regions lacking the resources for proper tracking, scientists report. This has led to "numerous unknowns" about the virus’s severity and transmission, complicating the global response, experts in Africa, Europe and the United States told Reuters.

Another worldwide alert – mpox is spreading. Here are three steps we can take to head it off
30 August 2024 - The Guardian

Just a little over a year since declaring that Covid-19 was no longer a public health emergency of international concern and that the 2022-23 mpox crisis had subsided, the World Health Organization finds itself warning of another crisis as cases of yet another new strain of the mpox virus spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to other countries in Africa and beyond.

WHO urges rapid access to mpox diagnostic tests, invites manufacturers to emergency review
29 August 2024 - World Health Organization

WHO has asked manufacturers of mpox in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) to submit an expression of interest for Emergency Use Listing (EUL). WHO has been in ongoing discussions with manufacturers about the need for effective diagnostics, particularly in low-income settings. The request for EUL expressions of interest by manufacturers is the latest development in these discussions.