When Moritz Kraemer first heard about the new monkeypox outbreak spreading through the UK, Europe, and the US, it was not through conventional scientific channels, or from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), but via Twitter. As each suspected case was reported, and infectious disease experts shared their theories in real time, Kraemer—an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford who specializes in modeling the spread of infectious diseases—became increasingly concerned.
“We realized that this outbreak was unusual in its geographic expansion, with some clusters not linked to travel,” he says. In the past, when monkeypox cropped up in Europe or North America, cases could be readily traced back to countries where the virus circulates. Not this time. To keep up with how the virus was spreading, Kraemer swiftly created the Monkeypox Tracker, which collates information on…
