Atlas of mpox lesions: a tool for clinical researchers, 28 April 2023, version 1.0

Overview

This compilation of images of mpox lesions shows examples of the effects of monkeypox virus infection on the skin and mucosa.

The Atlas has been developed in parallel with the emergency use protocol for tecovirimat for mpox under the MEURI framework. The MEURI ethical framework makes provision for the emergency use of unproven clinical intervention outside of clinical trials. 

For mpox, the initiative provides access to tecovirimat during the multi-country outbreak, pending the availability of evidence from randomised clinical trials. MEURI maintains ethics and regulatory oversight, and ensuring data monitoring, reporting, and sharing. The use of tecovirimat within this framework can be recorded using the WHO Global Clinical Data Platform for mpox which allows collection of anonymised patient data, and will contribute to our understanding of the clinical characteristics, variation and associations of mpox disease. The Atlas will support those collecting data to harmonise their assessments of lesions, and improve the quality of the collected data.

The Atlas may also be beneficial to the wider medical community as a teaching and learning resource, including in dermatology and sexual health clinics. It is one of many such resources, and it should be noted that this is not a comprehensive tool, nor does it focus on atypical lesions or those relating to other disease processes.