The World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to hold an emergency meeting next week over the “unusual and concerning” worldwide outbreak of monkeypox (MPXV). The disease may also be getting a new, non-discriminatory name.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the organization plans to look into whether the outbreak should be declared a “public health emergency of international concern,” as COVID-19 was, the BBC reports.
Over 1,600 cases of the disease have been recorded in 39 countries in the past few weeks, the WHO says, They point out that normally, in African countries where the disease is endemic, infection is caused by spill-over events to humans from animals such as rodents, squirrels, and non-human primates.
The prevailing perception in the international media and scientific literature is that MPXV is endemic in people in some African countries. However, it is well established that nearly all MPXV outbreaks in Africa prior to the 2022 outbreak, have been the result of spillover from animals to humans and only rarely have there been reports of sustained human-to-human transmissions
And as Time.com is reporting, while it’s still not clear how monkeypox spread to humans in the current outbreak, the virus has been spreading through close, intimate contact — a big change from earlier episodes.
And because the route of infection seems to have changed, Ghebreyesus said, “For that reason I have decided to convene the Emergency Committee under the international health regulations next week, to assess whether this outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.”
Good reasons to change the monkeypox name
In May this year, the Foreign Press Association, Africa registered its displeasure on Twitter against media outlets using images of black people alongside stories of the #monkeypox outbreak in North America and the United Kingdom.
Addirionally, in a letter released last week, a group of scientists said the name monkeypox and references to an African origin violated WHO guidelines that recommend against using geographic names or animal names, Bloomberg reports.
“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 stigmatizing,” they wrote.
And the press and the scientists make a very good point. Must people who have followed the outbreak will remember that photos of monkeypox in patients were published by the UK Government in May.
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. It is just not what they taught new doctors in medical school.
“As any other disease, it can occur in any region in the world and afflict anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity,” the group wrote. “As such, we believe that no race or skin complexion should be the face of this disease.”
In any cast, much like COVID-19, it is time for monkeypox to get its own name.
