Monkeypox is a viral disease with a clinical presentation resembling that of smallpox. Although monkeypox is considered to be an important zoonotic viral disease, its epidemiology remains poorly understood, especially the spatial and temporal distribution of the disease. The present study examined weekly reports of monkeypox cases collected from 2000 to 2015 at the health zone scale in the Democratic Republic of Congo. SaTScan^® was performed to identify spatial and temporal clusters of monkeypox cases. Significant primary spatial clusters were detected in the districts of Sankuru and Tshuapa. A centrifugal pattern was found, with significant primary spatial clusters extending over time from Sankuru and Tshuapa to several neighboring districts. Peaks of cases occurred from July to September for the 2000–2002 and 2003–2009 sub-periods and from January to March for the 2010–2015 sub-period. Despite the lack of additional data for confirmation, the increasing of monkeypox reported incidence was observed in the Democratic Republic of Congo during 2000–2015 period and this increase cannot be explain only by the improvements of surveillance systems. The detected spatial clusters were located in the dense rainforest of the Congo basin. The reasons for the excess incidence of monkeypox cases in the central region of the country are unknown, and the relative influence of ecological, environmental, and human factors on the mechanism of emergence of monkeypox has yet to be identified.

中文翻译：

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2000-2015 年刚果民主共和国猴痘的时空动态。


猴痘是一种病毒性疾病，其临床表现与天花相似。尽管猴痘被认为是一种重要的人畜共患病毒性疾病，但其流行病学，特别是该疾病的空间和时间分布仍知之甚少。本研究审查了 2000 年至 2015 年在刚果民主共和国卫生区范围内收集的猴痘病例每周报告。 SaTScan ^®用于识别猴痘病例的空间和时间集群。在桑库鲁和楚阿帕地区发现了显着的主要空间集群。我们发现了一种离心模式，随着时间的推移，显着的主要空间集群从桑库鲁和楚阿帕延伸到几个邻近地区。 2000-2002年和2003-2009年的病例高峰出现在7月至9月，2010-2015年的病例高峰出现在1月至3月。尽管缺乏更多数据进行确认，但 2000 年至 2015 年期间刚果民主共和国报告的猴痘发病率有所增加，而且这种增加不能仅用监测系统的改进来解释。检测到的空间簇位于刚果盆地茂密的雨林中。中部地区猴痘病例超发的原因尚不清楚，生态、环境和人文因素对猴痘发生机制的相对影响尚待确定。