Since 2022, the global community has witnessed an unprecedented surge in monkeypox cases, driven by the rapid spread of the highly transmissible Clade IIb variant in non-endemic regions, followed by the emergence of the more lethal Clade Ib strain in Africa in 2024 . This dual-wave outbreak has infected over 124,753 individuals across 100+ countries by late 2024, with a mortality rate of 0.2% globally, disproportionately affecting children and women in Africa . The World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern twice (2022 and 2024), highlighting its potential to disrupt healthcare systems and exacerbate existing inequalities .
To prevent the introduction of monkeypox and protect public health and safety, China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) issued Announcement No. 107 of 2024 (Regarding the Prevention of Monkeypox Importation into China) on August 15, 2024. The announcement reminds individuals arriving from countries or regions with active monkeypox outbreaks to proactively declare to customs upon entry if they have been in contact with monkeypox cases or exhibit symptoms such as fever, headache, back pain, muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes, rash, or mucosal lesions.
Currently, monkeypox virus detection kits based on technologies such as fluorescent PCR, immunochromatography, and multiplex amplicon have been successively launched. Most of these kits target monkeypox virus by designing qPCR primers against one or more conserved genes, or detecting specific antigens via immunochromatography. The ongoing monkeypox outbreak is driven by two distinct clades: Clade Ia, which caused last year’s global epidemic, and a new Clade Ib variant that has spread across multiple African countries this year. The emergence of this new variant poses significant challenges to existing detection kits.
Product Launch
iGeneTech introduces China’s first monkeypox virus whole-genome capture kit based on probe-based hybrid capture technology. Designed using full-genome sequences from multiple monkeypox virus clades, this kit offers higher tolerance for random viral mutations compared to multiplex amplicon-based targeted capture technology, reducing the need for frequent optimization and enabling efficient capture of emerging variants. It addresses critical needs for epidemic traceability, evolutionary prediction, and vaccine development in public health sectors.
The kit was validated by iGeneTech’s partner customers using the full suite of iGeneTech’s library construction and hybrid capture kits, achieving high-coverage monkeypox virus sequencing across diverse tissue samples (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Measured Data of iGeneTech’s Monkeypox Virus Whole-Genome Capture Kit
Samples 1–4 represent nucleic acid samples from different tissues, with NC serving as the negative control. Data show that all four positive samples achieved >96% coverage.
iGeneTech provides a complete set of extraction, library construction, and capture kits for monkeypox virus, which can be used with automated liquid handling workstations. Additionally, iGeneTech offers a variety of predefined whole-genome capture products for multiple pathogens, along with complementary kit products. For more information, please feel free to contact us: sales_int@igenetech.com
CN
