Health Officials Plan to Drop the 'Monkeypox' Name. Here's What Could Replace It
(CNN) -- Since the beginning of the monkeypox outbreak, scientists and activists have pushed for the name of the virus and the disease to be changed to something "non-discriminatory" and "non-stigmatizing."Public health experts have worried that stigma could steer people away from getting tested and vaccinated.
A new name can help slow the spread of the disease, they say, but it needs to come quickly.Globally, nearly 60,000 cases have been identified, placing the name "monkeypox" in individuals' medical files.
The World Health Organization's director-general promised in June that a change in the name was coming "as soon as possible," and WHO said it was working with experts to change the name of the virus, its variants and the disease it causes.But that was months ago.Typically, the scientist who isolates a virus gets to suggest a name.
The naming of the species is the responsibility of WHO's International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses.Scientists have been calling this virus "monkeypox" for 64 years.In 1958, researcher Preben von Magnus and his team in Copenhagen, Denmark, discovered two outbreaks of a "pox-like disease" in a colony of crab-eating macaque monkeys that their lab used for polio vaccine production and research.The first human case of monkeypox wasn't documented until 1970.
