The World Health Organization supports the invention of a new name for monkeypox amid a call by a group of scientists to use less discriminatory terminology to describe infections that are occurring in more and more places around the world.
Researchers calling for a change in the way we talk about the virus point out that its variants – or strains – have pre-existing names associated with African regions (West Africa and the Congo Basin) that are both stigmatizing and inaccurate in their coverage of the nature of the current spread of the virus.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adanom Gebreesus said this week that the UN Health Organization was “working with partners and experts from around the world to change the name of the monkeypox virus, its genera and the disease it causes.”
Scientists believe that changing the way we communicate about the disease will encourage more sharing of knowledge about outbreaks and could help minimize the negative effects.
Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern, is among scientists calling for changes in the way logs are described.
A centrifuge device was used to prepare samples for suspected monkeypox for testing at the microbiological laboratory at La Paz Hospital in Madrid earlier this month. Scientists are calling for a change in the way we talk about the virus, noting that the current geographical names of certain strains are both stigmatizing and inaccurate. (Pablo Blasquez Dominguez / Getty Images)
“The main damage here is for Africans, who are stigmatized by the association that monkeypox is endemic to people in the regions where the old logs are named,” Hodcroft told CBC News in an email.
Hodcroft and other researchers cited media reports that used images of patients with African monkeypox as part of the coverage of the outbreak in Europe as an “obvious manifestation” of this stigma.
Scientists suggest naming treasures numerically in their order of discovery – for example, MPXV 1, MPXV 2 or MPXV 3 – instead of a geographical identifier.
Not like previous outbreaks
So far, more than 1,000 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in a growing epidemic in which the virus has been found in more than two dozen countries – including Canada – where it has not been endemic.
But this is just one of the ways in which the current epidemic differs from previous ones.
Researchers who advocate a change in the names of the logs point out that the virus is currently spreading from person to person, rather than through animal-to-human transmission, as has usually been the case in the past.
This is true of Stephen Hoption Kahn, a clinical professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.
“It’s completely different in the way it spreads,” he told CBC News, noting that the previous spread of the virus was much more limited geographically.
Apart from discussing the future name of the virus, the WHO will meet next week to assess whether the current epidemic is a public health emergency of international importance.
Where does the current name come from?
According to the WHO, the monkeypox virus was first discovered in laboratory monkeys – hence the name – at a research center in Copenhagen in 1958. Human monkeypox was first identified 12 years later.
The WHO told CBC News that the name of human monkeypox was given before current best practices for naming the disease existed.
According to these naming practices, the WHO said the aim was to “minimize unnecessary negative impacts” on people, places and cultures, among other things.
Rosamund Lewis, WHO’s technical head for monkeypox, said the process of renaming the disease “may not be as clear” as it would be for a disease the world is not otherwise aware of.
“This is a disease that has been commented on, published for 50 years or more,” Lewis told CBC News Network in an interview Friday.
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Dr Rosamund Lewis, WHO’s technical director for monkeypox, said it was crucial to work with affected communities to develop public health messages without stigma.
Heidi Tuurek, an associate professor of international history and public policy at the University of British Columbia, believes the impetus for the renaming could go smoothly, especially after the WHO’s efforts to name different variants of COVID.
“The success of the WHO in renaming COVID variants from site-based to the Greek alphabet shows that it is possible to change the way journalists write about the disease,” Turek told CBC News in an email.
The exact timeline for each renaming of the monkeypox virus is unclear.
According to the WHO, “the naming of viruses is the responsibility of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses”. They said the process of renaming the wider group of orthopox virus types – which includes both smallpox and monkeypox – is under way.
Regarding the renaming of the monkeypox classes, which the group of scientists has officially called for, the WHO says it is consulting “with experts and technical advisory groups on poxvirology and viral evolution”.
Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist, said the existing naming method may have seemed “reasonable” at one time, but it is not now.
“We now know that these are not even very useful geographical descriptions – cases can be found outside these areas and not all places in these areas have cases,” she said.
“What they leave behind, however, is the stigma associated with the fear of monkeypox and who might be to blame.” ”
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