Against racism, WHO recommends changing the name of monkeypox to mpox

The WHO (World Health Organization) recommended renaming the monkeypox as Mpox as a measure to combat racism.

According to the statement made by the organization today, since new cases were confirmed this year, it observed and received reports that “racist and stigmatizing language” associated with the disease was used in digital media. Therefore, the organization reported that it consulted experts and adopted the new name as a synonym for existing terminology.

“Reasons for recommendations include scientific competence, current scope of use, pronunciation, availability in different languages, lack of geographic or zoological references, and ease of access to historical scientific information,” said the WHO.

The new name is an adaptation of the English name for monkeypox (monkeypox) and will have a period of one year from today to be used concurrently with the old nomenclature at a time WHO has set for compliance.

According to the organization, monkeypox got its name in 1970 after the disease virus was discovered in monkeys in 1958.

In 2015, WHO published its guidelines that set standards for naming diseases. These guidelines point to best practice terminologies that minimize the negative impact on the business, commerce, travel and tourism sectors and animal welfare while still avoiding offending any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic group.

See below the new standards set by WHO:

• adoption of Mpox, the new English synonym for monkeypox;
• After a one-year transition period, mpox will become the preferred term instead of monkeypox. This serves to reassure experts about the confusion caused by the name change during a global pandemic. It also provides time to complete the ICD update process and update WHO publications;
• synonym mpox will be added to the online ICD-10 in the coming days. It will be part of the official 2023 release of ICD-11, the current global standard for health data, clinical documentation and statistical collection;
• The term “monkey flower” will remain a searchable term in the ICD to match historical information.