TY - JOUR
T1 - Monkeypox
T2 - another test for PCR
AU - Huggett, Jim F.
AU - French, David
AU - O’Sullivan, Denise M.
AU - Moran-Gilad, Jacob
AU - Zumla, Alimuddin
N1 - Funding Information:
Drs Huggett, French and O’Sullivan are funded [in part] by the UK government Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Sir Prof Alimuddin Zumla is co-principle investigator of the Pan-African Network on Emerging and Re-emerging Infections (PANDORA-ID-NET), funded by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, supported under Horizon 2020. Sir Zumla is in receipt of a National Institutes of Health Research senior investigator award. We would like to thank Dr Eloise Busby, Miss Chichi Chogugudza and Dr Lindy McClelland of LGC for assistance with dPCR assays and oligonucleotide design and Kathryn Harris (Barts NHS trust) for critical review of the manuscript.
Funding Information:
Drs Huggett, French and O’Sullivan are funded [in part] by the UK government Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Sir Prof Alimuddin Zumla is co-principle investigator of the Pan-African Network on Emerging and Re-emerging Infections (PANDORA-ID-NET), funded by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, supported under Horizon 2020. Sir Zumla is in receipt of a National Institutes of Health Research senior investigator award.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/8/1
Y1 - 2022/8/1
N2 - Monkeypox was declared a public health emergency of international conc ern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 23 July 2022. Between 1 January and 23 July 2022, 16,016 laboratory confirmed cases of monkeypox and five deaths were reported to WHO from 75 countries on all continents. Public health authorities are proactively identifying cases and tracing their contacts to contain its spread. As with COVID-19, PCR is the only method capable of being deployed at sufficient speed to provide timely feedback on any public health interventions. However, at this point, there is little information on how those PCR assays are being standardised between laboratories. A likely reason is that testing is still limited on a global scale and that detection, not quantification, of monkeypox virus DNA is the main clinical requirement. Yet we should not be complacent about PCR performance. As testing requirements increase rapidly and specimens become more diverse, it would be prudent to ensure PCR accuracy from the outset to support harmonisation and ease regulatory conformance. Lessons from COVID-19 should aid implementation with appropriate material, documentary and methodological standards offering dynamic mechanisms to ensure testing that most accurately guides public health decisions.
AB - Monkeypox was declared a public health emergency of international conc ern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 23 July 2022. Between 1 January and 23 July 2022, 16,016 laboratory confirmed cases of monkeypox and five deaths were reported to WHO from 75 countries on all continents. Public health authorities are proactively identifying cases and tracing their contacts to contain its spread. As with COVID-19, PCR is the only method capable of being deployed at sufficient speed to provide timely feedback on any public health interventions. However, at this point, there is little information on how those PCR assays are being standardised between laboratories. A likely reason is that testing is still limited on a global scale and that detection, not quantification, of monkeypox virus DNA is the main clinical requirement. Yet we should not be complacent about PCR performance. As testing requirements increase rapidly and specimens become more diverse, it would be prudent to ensure PCR accuracy from the outset to support harmonisation and ease regulatory conformance. Lessons from COVID-19 should aid implementation with appropriate material, documentary and methodological standards offering dynamic mechanisms to ensure testing that most accurately guides public health decisions.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136340299&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2022.27.32.2200497
DO - 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2022.27.32.2200497
M3 - Article
C2 - 35959687
AN - SCOPUS:85136340299
VL - 27
JO - Eurosurveillance
JF - Eurosurveillance
SN - 1560-7917
IS - 32
M1 - 2200497
ER -
