The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated its intent to relabel monkeypox “as soon as possible,” due to its current name being called racist and discriminatory to Africa.
A group of over 30 researchers has “signed a position paper stating there was an ‘urgent need’ to change its name given the current outbreak, which has mainly struck gay and bisexual men,” as reported by the Daily Mail.
“They wrote: ‘Continued reference to, and nomenclature of this virus being African is not only inaccurate but is also discriminatory and stigmatizing,'” stated the U.K.-based paper.
The head of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, stated his confirmation that the virus will be renamed, stating that the group is “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus, its clades, and the disease it causes.”
“We will make announcements about the new names as soon as possible,” he stated.
The virus in question is endemic to western and central Africa but, recently, has been spreading out to around 40 other countries around the globe. Symptoms of the virus include “a fever, intense headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy, swollen lymph nodes and a skin rash or lesions,” stated the WHO on its website. “Lesions can be flat or slightly raised, filled with clear or yellowish fluid, and can then crust, dry up and fall off. The number of lesions on one person can range from a few to several thousand” and are usually “concentrated on the face, palms of the hands and soles of the feet” but have been witnessed to have spread to the area around the mouth, genitals, and eyes.
Currently, the virus has split into two distinct types, with the names marking where they were discovered, such as the Congo Basin or Central African strains or the West African variant.
The recent school of thought from scientists has moved over to using numbers, such as MPXV1 and MPXV2 to mark and differentiate between the various strains.
This choice is quite similar to what the WHO did in regards to COVID-19, which previously was referred to as the Wuhan virus due to where it was originally discovered. The who has since swapped the name of the virus to SARS-CoV-2.
“Other groups have warned of stigma in communication about monkeypox,” stated Bloomberg in a report. “In late May, the Foreign Press Association of Africa asked western media to stop using photos of Black people to highlight what the condition looks like in stories about the US or UK. In the weeks since, scientists have also raised the point that the lesions patients are presenting with in this current outbreak have, in many cases, been distinct from what’s been historically documented in Africa.”
“As any other disease, it can occur in any region in the world and afflict anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity,” stated the group. “As such, we believe that no race or skin complexion should be the face of this disease.”