Estimating the Importation Risk of Mpox Virus in 2022 to Hong Kong, China

Abstract

International air travel has been recognized as a crucial factor in the cross-regional transmission of monkeypox (now known as mpox) since this disease rapidly spread across the globe in May 2022. On September 6, 2022, Hong Kong SAR (HK) reported its first imported mpox case with travel history of the United States (US), Canada, and the Philippines. In this study, we estimated the importation risk to HK from 25 international departure regions from May 1 to September 6, 2022, based on the prevalence of presymptomatic mpox cases in the study regions, and time-varying flight mobility evaluated by aggregating multiple open-access air travel datasets (e.g., OpenSky and Aviation Edge). The results of the study indicated that during the study period, the highest risk of mpox importation was from the US, at 63% (95% CI: 32% and 95%), followed by the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada, with risks of 29% (95% CI: 10% and 63%), and 17% (95% CI: 8% and 32%), respectively. The importation risk of mpox from the US and Canada was substantially higher than from the other regions, which was aligned with the travel history of the first reported case in HK. Our study introduces a simplified computational method that estimates the risk of importation mpox virus by combining air travel mobility, disease prevalence, and observed real-world scenarios to achieve accurate outcome estimates. Estimating the cross-regional importation risk of mpox would be beneficial in designing and adjusting inbound measures appropriately, which are essential for emergency public health policies.