It’s mpox now, not monkeypox, says WHO amid racism worries

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, November 28

In a major development that seeks to end concerns of racism around the use of the term monkeypox and fight stigma, the World Health Organisation on Monday said it would not be calling the disease mpox.

Experts have been seeking name change of the decades old disease, citing two main reasons—the long history of comparing the black people to monkeys and the false impression created by the term monkeypox that the disease is caused by monkeys alone.

“Following a series of consultations with global experts, WHO will begin using a new preferred term “mpox” as a synonym for monkeypox. Both names will be used simultaneously for one year while “monkeypox” is phased out,” the WHO said today, with several experts welcoming the move.

The world body said when the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatising language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO. “In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name,” the global body said.

Mpox will become a preferred term, replacing monkeypox, after a transition period of one year to mitigate concerns raised by experts about confusion caused by a name change in the midst of a global outbreak, the WHO explained.

Human monkeypox was given its name in 1970 (after the virus that causes the disease was discovered in captive monkeys in 1958), before the publication of WHO best practices in naming diseases, published in 2015. According to these best practices, new disease names should be given with the aim to minimize unnecessary negative impact of names on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.

Since early May 2022, over 80,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported from countries where the disease is not endemic, and continue to be reported in several endemic countries.

Most reported cases so far have been identified through sexual health or other health services in primary or secondary health-care facilities and have involved mainly, but not exclusively, men who have sex with men.

Monkeypox is caused by monkeypox virus, a member of the Orthopoxvirus genus in the family Poxviridae.