WHO calls on public to rename monkeypox

The World Health Organization (WHO) appealed to the public on Tuesday for help in renaming the moneypox virus that started spreading across the western world in May.

WHO is looking for a "neutral, non-discriminatory, and non-stigmatizing" name amid fears that the term monkeypox could be used in a racist way. Until this year, the virus mainly spread only in certain countries in western and central Africa.

They UN medical experts also wanted to change make the name more scientifically accurate, WHO said, as monkeys were not actually the most common animal host of the illness.

Although it was first identified in Denmark in 1958 in a monkey, the virus is usually found in rodents.

There are also hopes that the name change will deter people from angrily attacking monkeys, as was the case in Brazil last week.

"Human monkeypox was given its name before current best practices in naming diseases," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told reporters in Geneva.

"We want really to find a name that is not stigmatizing," she added, saying the consultation is now open to everyone through a dedicated website. 

Despite the open avenue for new names, WHO has promised that the name won't be anything "ridiculous."

31,000 cases globally

Some new names under consideration are OPOXID-22, submitted by a Harvard Medical School physician using a naming convention similar to the one used for COVID-19.

Mpox was submitted by Samuel Miriello, director of a men's health organization REZO, which is already using the name in its outreach campaigns in Montreal, Canada.

"When you remove the monkey imagery, people seem to understand more quickly that there's an emergency that needs to be taken seriously," he told the Reuters news agency.

About 31,000 cases of the virus and 12 deaths have been reported so far this year globally. The disease causes fever, aches, and in some cases skin lesions.

WHO has designated the outbreak a global health emergency.

es/dj (AFP, Reuters)