The World Health Organization’s statement came after about 30 researchers a few days earlier had argued for a name change in an article in the journal Virological.
“The outbreak we see today is global, which is why all references to the virus being African are not only incorrect, but also discriminatory and stigmatizing,” they write.
According to the researchers, the virus that caused the current outbreak is significantly different, compared to the two virus strains circulating in central and western Africa, respectively. No known connection to either monkeys or Africa exists, so the name is misleading. As a suggestion, they write, the disease may change its name to hMPXV. At least until the WHO comes up with something better.
But what significance does it have what a disease is called? Does it matter? The short answer is: yes.
Among the authors of the article in Virological is Tulio de Oliveira, Professor of Bioinformatics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He, if anyone, should know what he is talking about. In November 2021, he and his colleagues discovered the omicron variant. At first, however, this variant was called the variant from South Africa (not to be confused with the virus that had previously been called the South African variant, which was later named beta). This contributed to the hysteria that then erupted when several countries imposed severe travel restrictions on South Africa, with devastating consequences for the country’s tourism as a result. This is despite the fact that no one still knows where or when the omicron originated. Maybe in South Africa, or somewhere else. To top it all, omicrons were already in Europe at this time.
The WHO is well aware of the consequences of “wrong” names of diseases or viruses
Tulio de Oliveira and his colleagues believe that the current outbreak of monkey pox seems to have originated in Europe, where the first patient was discovered in early May. Before that, the virus had probably been circulating on the continent for several months, when a massive adaptation to us humans took place.
– From Europe, it has since been introduced to the rest of the world, says Tulio de Oliveira to the journal Science.
At present, more than 3,300 suspected and confirmed cases have been found in about 50 different countries, including Sweden, where about ten cases have been discovered.
The WHO is well aware of the consequences of “wrong” names of diseases or viruses. Hence the organization already in 2015 recommended that Member States not use geographical names.
However, that did not stop Former US President Donald Trump from consistently calling the virus that causes covid-19 (sars-cov-2) “the Chinese virus”, as research has shown increased the amount of hatred and threats against Americans of Asian descent. After the then president used the term for the first time, in a tweet on March 16, 2020, the number of hashtags with the cape aimed at Asians in general and Chinese in particular avalanched.
The World Health Organization agrees with the researchers and states that they are now working to replace the name monkey pox with something else, a name that should be “non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing”, writes BBC.
However, Tulio de Oliveira wants to go a step further and also change the names of “old” diseases. For example, Ebola, which is named after the Ebola River in the current Democratic Republic of Congo where the virus was discovered.
– Most (of these diseases) have been named by people who were doing a kind of colonialist research. They landed in one place and just ‘Wow, this is what I discovered. I call it what I want. ‘ That’s what they used to do. Is that the right way to go? I do not think so, he says.
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