Nakazawa, Yoshinori U.Lash, R. RyanCarroll, Darin S.Damon, Inger K.Karem, Kevin L.Reynolds, Mary G.Osorio, Jorge E.Rocke, Tonie E.Malekani, Jean M.Muyembe, Jean-JacquesFormenty, PierrePeterson, A. Townsend2014-03-192014-03-192013-09-05Nakazawa, Y., Lash, R. R., Carroll, D. S., Damon, I. K., Karem, K. L., Reynolds, M. G., … Peterson, A. T. (2013). Mapping Monkeypox Transmission Risk through Time and Space in the Congo Basin. PLoS ONE, 8(9). http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0074816https://hdl.handle.net/1808/13273Monkeypox is a major public health concern in the Congo Basin area, with changing patterns of human case occurrences reported in recent years. Whether this trend results from better surveillance and detection methods, reduced proportions of vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated human populations, or changing environmental conditions remains unclear. Our objective is to examine potential correlations between environment and transmission of monkeypox events in the Congo Basin. We created ecological niche models based on human cases reported in the Congo Basin by the World Health Organization at the end of the smallpox eradication campaign, in relation to remotely-sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index datasets from the same time period. These models predicted independent spatial subsets of monkeypox occurrences with high confidence; models were then projected onto parallel environmental datasets for the 2000s to create present-day monkeypox suitability maps. Recent trends in human monkeypox infection are associated with broad environmental changes across the Congo Basin. Our results demonstrate that ecological niche models provide useful tools for identification of areas suitable for transmission, even for poorly-known diseases like monkeypox.This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.AlgorithmsEcological nichesGeographyRodentsSmallpox virusSpatial distributionTheoretical ecologyWildlifeArticle10.1371/journal.pone.0074816https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7171-2748openAccess