The first case of monkeypox in a human was reported in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, there have been many monkeypox outbreaks, but they have been self-limiting, with chains of human transmission ending without establishing epidemics. The current outbreak, however, is different. There is more human-to-human transmission, and it is over a much broader geographical area.

In mere weeks, monkeypox has spread to 37 non-endemic countries, with over 2,600 cases. So, what is likely to happen to monkeypox in the following weeks and months?

There are huge gaps in what we know about monkeypox, but combining what we do know with a history of other infectious diseases makes it possible to analyse likely future scenarios.

The four scenarios below are based on the following knowledge: the average number of people an infected person is likely to infect (assuming they have not been vaccinated against the virus or have had the disease before) is 2.13. This is called the basic reproduction number, or R. Herd immunity – the point at which enough people have immunity such that disease transmission can’t be sustained – is 53% (corresponding to this value of R). And the incubation period, the time from catching the virus to the appearance of symptoms, is between five and 21 days.

Scenario 1: Self-limiting outbreak
The 2022 epidemic appears to have started as a super-spreader event involving a network of predominantly men who have sex with men.

But until the current outbreak it was assumed that the relatively low human-to-human transmissibility of the virus makes it unlikely for the virus to spread outside the initial community.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/how-monkeypox-epidemic-is-likely-to-play-out-in-four-graphs-184578