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The World Health Organization says it is holding an open forum for Rename monkeypoxafter some critics raised concerns that the name could be seen as discriminatory and stigmatizing.
The World Health Organization said the decision was made after a meeting with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which helps define best practices for naming new human diseases “to avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, occupational, or cultural offence”. ethnic groups, and to minimize any negative impact on trade, travel, tourism, or animal welfare.”
In a Friday statement, he said United Nations health agency She said she renamed two families, or groups, of the virus, using Roman numerals instead of geographic regions, to avoid stigma.
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The version of the disease formerly known as the Congo Basin will now be known as Clade one or I and the West African branch will be known as Clade 2 or II.
The World Health Organization said the new names for the blocks would come into effect immediately while work would be done on a new name for the disease and virus. The World Health Organization has said that anyone who wishes to submit a name suggestion can do so website.
The decision comes after a group of scientists In June he proposed an “urgent” change to the name, describing the current name as “discriminatory and stigmatizing”.
They suggested that the new name would reduce “the negative impacts on countries, geographic regions, economies and people that take into account the evolution and spread of the virus.”
Scientists have suggested a neutral name that explains the evolution of the virus.
“In the context of the current global outbreak, continued reference to and categorization of this virus as being African is not only inaccurate but discriminatory and stigmatizing. The most notable manifestation of this is the use of images of African patients to depict smallpox as pests in the global media mainstream” In a joint statement.
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The CDC notes that the source of monkeypox is unknown, although the virus was named in 1958 when a smallpox-like disease broke out in colonies where monkeys were kept for research.
Before 2022, monkeypox cases were almost always associated for international travel To countries where the disease is spread or through imported animals. The first human case was in 1970.
“What people need to know very clearly is that the transmission that we’re seeing is human-to-human transmission. It’s transmission through close contact. So the concern needs to be about where it’s transmitted between humans, and what humans can do to protect themselves from infection and transmission.. They certainly shouldn’t be. Attack any animalsWHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said Tuesday.