The World Health Organization is backing the search for a new name for monkeypox in the midst of a call from a group of scientists to use less discriminatory terminology to describe the growing number of infections. places in the world.
Scientists calling for a change in the way the virus is spoken point out that its clades (or strains) have pre-existing names related to African regions (West Africa and Congo Basin), which are stigmatizing and inaccurate in reflecting the nature of the current. spread of the virus.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week that the UN health organization is “working with partners and experts around the world to rename the monkeypox virus. its clades and the disease it causes. “
Scientists believe that changing the way we communicate about the disease would promote more knowledge sharing about outbreaks and could help minimize negative impacts.
Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern, is among the scientists calling for changes in the way clades are described.
A centrifugation device is used to prepare suspicious smallpox samples for testing in the microbiology laboratory of La Paz Hospital in Madrid earlier this month. Scientists are calling for a change in the way the virus is spoken, and point out that the current geographical names of certain strains are stigmatizing and inaccurate. (Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images)
“The main damage here is for Africans, who are stigmatized by the association that monkeypox is endemic in humans in regions where ancient clades are named,” Hodcroft told CBC News in an email.
Hodcroft and other scientists pointed to media reports that have used archival footage of smallpox patients as part of coverage of the outbreak in Europe as “an obvious manifestation” of this stigma.
Scientists propose that clades be named numerically in their order of discovery, for example, MPXV 1, MPXV 2, or MPXV 3, instead of using a geographic identifier.
Not like the previous outbreaks
To date, more than 1,000 cases of smallpox have been confirmed in a growing outbreak that has seen the virus detected in more than two dozen countries, including Canada, where it has not been endemic to date.
But this is just one of the ways in which the current outbreak differs from the previous ones.
Scientists advocating for the change in clade names point out that the virus is currently spreading from human to human and not through animal-to-human transmission events, as it has usually done in the past.
This sounds true to Stephen Hoption Cann, a clinical professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.
“This is completely different in how it is spreading,” he told CBC News in an interview, noting that the previous spread of the virus has been much more geographically limited.
Aside from considering the future name of the virus, the WHO will meet next week to assess whether the current outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern.
Where does the current name come from?
According to the WHO, the monkeypox virus was first discovered in laboratory monkeys – hence the name – at a research facility in Copenhagen in 1958. Human smallpox was identified. for the first time 12 years later.
The WHO told CBC News that the name human smallpox was assigned before current best practices for naming diseases existed.
Under these naming practices, the WHO said the goal is to “minimize unnecessary negative impact” on people, places and cultures, among other considerations.
Rosamund Lewis, WHO’s technical director for the monkey’s smallpox, said the process of renaming the disease “may not be as simple” as it would be for a disease with which the world does not is familiar.
“It’s a disease that’s been talked about, published for 50 years or more,” Lewis told CBC News Network in an interview Friday.
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Dr Rosamund Lewis, WHO’s technical director on monkeypox, says it is crucial to work with affected communities to develop public health messages without stigmatization.
Heidi Tworek, an associate professor of international history and public policy at the University of British Columbia, believes a name change could go smoothly, especially after WHO’s efforts to name several variants of COVID.
“WHO’s success in changing the name of COVID variants from the local alphabet to the Greek alphabet shows that it is possible to change the way journalists write about a disease,” Tworek said. to CBC News in an email.
The exact timing for any monkeypox virus name change is unclear.
According to the WHO, “the denomination of viruses is the responsibility of the International Committee on Virus Taxonomy.” They said the process to rename the broader group of orthopox virus species, which includes both smallpox and monkeypox, is already underway.
As for changing the names of the monkeypox clades, which is formally requested by the group of scientists, the WHO says it is consulting “with experts and technical advisory groups on poxvirology and viral evolution.”
Hodcroft, the molecular epidemiologist, said the existing naming method may have seemed “reasonable” at one time, but it is not now.
“We now know that geographic descriptions are not even very useful; cases can be found outside of these areas and not all places in these areas have cases,” he said.
“What they do leave behind, however, is the stigma attached to fear of the monkey’s smallpox and who may be to blame.”