History of smallpox vaccination and marked clinical expression of mpox among cases notified in France, from May to July 2022.

OBJECTIVES: The aim was to estimate the effect of reported history of smallpox vaccination prior to 1980 on clinical expression of mpox.

METHODS: We included all confirmed mpox cases identified by the national mpox surveillance system in France between May and July 2022. Cases tested positive for monkeypox virus or orthopoxviruses by PCR. Cases were interviewed by phone using a questionnaire documenting demographics, symptoms and exposures. To estimate the effect of smallpox vaccination on presence of marked mpox symptoms (association of fever, lymphadenopathy and extensive mucocutaneous lesions), we estimated prevalence ratios (PR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) using Poisson regression models with robust standard errors.

RESULTS: There were 1,888 confirmed mpox cases with date of symptom onset between 7 May and 31 July 2022. Overall, 7% (93/1,394) presented marked mpox symptoms. Among cases who provided information about their vaccination status, 14% (207/1,469) reported smallpox vaccination prior to 1980. The proportion of cases with marked symptoms was 2% (3/170) among those reporting smallpox vaccination prior to 1980 and 8% (76/974) among those who reported no vaccination. The proportion of marked symptoms was four times lower among cases reporting previous smallpox vaccination than in cases reporting no vaccination (PR 0.24, 95%CI: 0.08-0.76). There was no evidence of an effect of smallpox vaccination on development of complications (PR 0.65, 95%CI: 0.35-1.22) or hospitalisation due to mpox (PR 0.64, 95%CI: 0.23-1.80).

CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that smallpox vaccination during childhood attenuated the clinical expression of monkeypox virus infection, but there was no evidence of an effect on complications or hospitalisation.