Monkeypox to get a new name, says WHO

World health agency to rename virus to minimise stigma and racism

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that it is working with scientists to come up with a new name for the monkeypox virus that will not be “discriminatory and stigmatising”.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on Tuesday that the organisation was “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes”.

A WHO spokesperson said the agency is consulting experts in orthopoxviruses – the family to which monkeypox belongs – to come up with an appropriate name.

The health agency is also holding an emergency meeting next week to determine whether to classify the outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern.

Naming diseases “should be done with the aim to minimise the negative impact and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups,” a WHO spokesperson was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

The WHO chief said the organisation will make announcements about the new names as soon as possible.

This comes after more than 30 scientists wrote last week that there was an “urgent need for a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatising nomenclature for monkeypox virus”.

The scientists, in a letter they published online, said the new nomenclature would be “aligned with best practices in the naming of infectious diseases in a way that minimises unnecessary negative impacts on nations, geographic regions, economies and people and that considers the evolution and spread of the virus”.

“In the context of the current global outbreak, continued reference to, and nomenclature of this virus being African is not only inaccurate but is also discriminatory and stigmatising,” they said.

The health experts encouraged the community “to adopt a principled and neutral naming scheme”.

“We believe that this new classification will be easily adopted and is supported by the Africa Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and we are in advanced discussion with the WHO,” they added.

In recent weeks, more than 1,600 cases of the disease have been reported across the world.