This multidisciplinary project aim to understand the epidemiology of the monkeypox in Central African Republic through the identification of the animal reservoir, the clinical and epidemiological description of the human outbreak, through an ethnological approach around risk factors of the disease and through an ecological approach of the ecological context of emergence, and the improvement of biological diagnosis.

This project is composed by monkyepox disease outbreak investigation in the CAR following national surveillance framework.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Human population in villages affected by monkeypox epidemics: patients who developed monkeypox and their contacts
• Health care personnel (paramedics, nurses, doctors) who work or have worked in affected villages
• Traditional healers, diviners
• Members of villages affected by past monkeypox epidemics

Exclusion Criteria:

• area not accessible to investigation
• refusal to participate
• inability to obtain consent

The populations concerned by the study correspond to the sedentary populations known as "Bantus" and the more mobile populations known as "pygmies. These populations belong to different ethno-linguistic groups with more or less specific forest uses and subsistence practices: some are slash-and-burn farmers (Ngbaka, Bagando, Monzombo), others are more mobile and traditionally hunter-gatherers, but now practice agriculture (Bayaka "Pygmies").

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)