Objective To analyse the transmission dynamics of the monkeypox outbreak in the UK, declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in July 2022.
Design Contact tracing study, linking data on case-contact pairs and on probable exposure dates.
Setting Case questionnaires from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), United Kingdom.
Participants 2746 people with polymerase chain reaction confirmed monkeypox virus in the UK between 6 May and 1 August 2022.
Main outcome measures The incubation period and serial interval of a monkeypox infection using two bayesian time delay models—one corrected for interval censoring (ICC—interval censoring corrected) and one corrected for interval censoring, right truncation, and epidemic phase bias (ICRTC—interval censoring right truncation corrected). Growth rates of cases by reporting date, when monkeypox virus was confirmed and reported to UKHSA, were estimated using generalised additive models.
Results The mean age of participants was 37.8 years and 95% reported…
