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After a group of scientists released a document in June taking a stand in favor of a “neutral, non-discriminatory, and indiscriminate” name, the World Health Organization (WHO)Who is theOn Tuesday (16) an open consultation was opened to determine a new name for monkeypox. In general, the names of diseases are chosen by a technical committee, but this time the process will be different.
“We welcome anyone from the public, academia or civil society to suggest new names. Who is the “Where people can suggest names,” WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said at a United Nations press conference.
The Who is the She said she would decide between the proposals “according to their scientific validity, their acceptability, their pronunciation (and) whether they can be used in different languages.”
One strong argument for making the change is that the current name is misleading, as monkeys are not the original host of the virus. Until this year, monkeypox was mainly prevalent in a group of countries in West and Central Africa.
Dozens of applications have already been submitted by a range of contributors, including academics, doctors and a gay community activist. Poxy McPoxface, TRUMP-22 or Mbox are two suggestions made by the public.
Suggestions range from the technical (OPOXID-22, introduced by emergency physician Jeremy Faust of Harvard Medical School) to the funny (Poxy McPoxface, introduced by Andrew Yi in reference to Boaty McBoatface—which was roughly the name of the British polar research vessel after a popular vote).
“It is very important that we find a new name for monkeypox, because this is the best practice not to provoke any insult to an ethnic group, region, country, animal, etc.”, concluded Shuaib.
