Biological characteristics, biosafety prevention and control strategies for the 2022 multi-country outbreak of monkeypox

Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus(MPXV),which is a potential biological warfare agent of bioterrorism and poses the greatest threat to the world’s public biosafety and health after variola virus(VARV).While the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pandemic has not ended yet,monkeypox is spreading menacingly.The first case of monkeypox in a nonendemic country was confirmed on May 6^(th),2022,while the first imported case from Asia was found on June 21^(st).There were more than 16 thousand reported cases as of July 23^(rd),the day the World Health Organization(WHO)declared the global monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern(PHEIC)at the same level as smallpox and COVID-19;while there were more than 53 thousand cases as of September 1^(st).Therefore,we will propose relevant biosafety prevention and control strategies after analyzing the etiology of the 2022 multi-country monkeypox outbreak from the biological feature,transmissibility,epidemic,and variability of MPXV.