Why mpox?
In August 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) following a sharp rise in cases across Central Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been the most affected, reporting nearly 20,000 confirmed cases, and over 50% of the confirmed deaths, as of March 2025. Neighbouring countries including Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic have also seen significant outbreaks.
Our work
Elrha has previously supported research and innovation in outbreaks of infectious disease, including in Ebola, COVID-19 and cholera. When the Emergency was declared our scoping of key research and innovation needs identified social and behavioural science (SBS) as a critical gap.
SBS seeks to understand how individuals, communities, and societies perceive, respond to, and are affected by outbreaks of infectious disease. We identified a role for Elrha to strengthen SBS in the mpox response, particularly in Eastern DRC where the outbreak is compounded by ongoing humanitarian crises.
This page is continually updated as our mpox response progresses.
Our approach
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), we are supporting the mpox response by convening the community of practice, funding rapid research, and ensuring the uptake of research findings.
- Convene: we are supporting WHO to convene an SBS community of practice to ensure that researchers conducting studies on mpox share findings with response leadership in real time.
- Fund rapid research: we have committed to funding rapid operational social and behavioural science research and research on vaccine acceptance.
- Ensure research uptake: we will support the funded research teams to ensure their findings are used in the outbreak response.
Tools and research
Through our work, we aim to achieve the following:
- Delivery of a joint convening event with WHO in November 2024 and meeting report to establish the role of SBS in building an effective, ethical and community-driven response.
- Development of a generalisable SBS protocol that can be employed in future infectious disease outbreaks.
- Findings on vaccine acceptance to inform vaccine deployment strategies and shape public health messaging.
Image credit: Mpox Virus Colorized transmission electron micrograph of mpox virus particles (pink) found within an infected cell (yellow), cultured in the laboratory. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID
