Monkeypox has been given a new name by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has announced the disease will now be called “mpox” in a bid to help tackle discrimination and stigma.
The WHO announced its intention to rename the disease in June after concerns were raised that its original name is misleading, stigmatising and discriminatory, with a crowd-sourcing effort to find a new name announced in August.
Now the WHO has revealed that the reference to non-human primates is to be dropped.
“Mpox will become a preferred term, replacing monkeypox, after a transition period of one year,” the UN health agency said in a statement. “This serves to mitigate the concerns raised by experts about confusion caused by a name change in the midst of a global outbreak.”
The WHO added that a key issue in choosing the new name was its usability in different languages, while scientific appropriateness, pronounceability, and absence of geographical or zoological references were among the other considerations.
The virus that causes mpox was first identified in captive monkeys in 1958. However, the natural reservoir of the disease is unknown and it is commonly found in rodents. What’s more, scientists have raised concerns over the way outbreaks are covered by the media, and the naming of different strains of the virus by reference to various parts of Africa.
“In the context of the current global outbreak, continued reference to, and nomenclature of this virus, being African is not only inaccurate but is also discriminatory and stigmatising,” the experts wrote in June.
The different strains of mpox were subsequently renamed clade I, clade II and clade IIb.
Similar concerns arose with the arrival of new variants during the Covid pandemic, resulting in Covid variants being given monikers based on the Greek alphabet, rather than the location in which they were first identified.
Mpox, which was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has made headlines in recent months after an unprecedented global outbreak began in May – largely among men who have sex with men.
Up to 21 November, the UK alone recorded 3,720 confirmed or probable cases, compared with seven between 2018 and 2021.
Prof Paul Hunter of the University of East Anglia welcomed the move by the WHO. “Given that monkeys are not a primary source of the virus the new name is less confusing for people who do not know the background to this infection,” he said.
“It is however a shame that one of the driving forces for making this change now has been the ‘racist and stigmatising language’ used online. Hopefully such language will now stop.”
