The World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to rename monkeypox, sighting fears that the current name encourages discrimination and stigma.
The decision to rename the zoonotic viral disease was made following a meeting of “global experts” with the aim of avoiding further “offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, or ethnic groups, and minimise any negative impact on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare”.
According to the Associated Press, WHO says once a new name has been decided via an open forum, the name change will “take effect immediately,” however, no timeline has been given to date on when monkeypox will be officially renamed.
📍This group of global experts – convened by WHO – agreed on new names for #monkeypox virus variants, as part of ongoing efforts to align the names of the monkeypox disease, virus, and variants—or clades—with current best practices. https://t.co/G375WraUz0
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) August 13, 2022
The monkeypox virus was originally named in 1958 following monkeys in a Danish laboratory being observed to have a ‘pox-like’ disease. The organisation explained this was “before current best practices in naming diseases and viruses were adopted.”
To date, there have been more than 31,700 cases of monkeypox identified across the globe in the current outbreak, which started in May 2022.
