Health The monkeypox outbreak was avoidable and warning signs were ignored, expert says "What imagining that waiting for? And why is that thing more important than people who are saying they are experiencing the worst pain of their lives right now? So, the naming of it is secondary to everything else." The government was too slow in mobilizing its monkeypox vaccine stockpile, Makofane says. "And if those things were fine, there'd be no monkeypox to talk about." "At the moment, the things that are really standing in the way of a successful response are just having access to testing, to vaccine and to treatments," he said.
It's important for stigma to be a focal point in the discussions around monkeypox, says Keletso Makofane, a public health researcher and activist who is a fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard.īut changing the disease's name isn't a priority for Makofane, he says. Instead, it's part of a broad review of naming conventions for all virus species, including monkeypox, after the ICTV adopted changes in 2020 to standardize its naming format.įor example, the formal name for the virus could change, Lefkowitz told NPR, from the current Monkeypox virus to Orthopoxvirus monkeypox. Health Fauci says government must understand 'profound risk' of monkeypox to control spreadĪnd while the ICTV says a change to the monkeypox virus' formal name could come in the next year or two, the revision wouldn't be a response to the current outbreak. That criteria cited monkeypox as an example - but the WHO didn't call for revising the name. Recognizing problems with disease names, WHO issued criteria in 2015, specifically telling researchers to avoid including animal terms or geographical places when they name new diseases. What have global health agencies said so far? But in her view, "if we can help, protect and improve the health equity of people by changing an offensive and inaccurate name, it makes sense to do so," she said. Gilmer says she understands the psychology and human logic at work in naming a new disease in a way that connects it to details about its discovery, such as the animal or place in which it was found.
#Another word for actions professional#
The WHO has embraced a similar idea, saying that when researchers name diseases, they should seek to minimize unnecessary harm to "trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups." But, Gilmer added, "associating a disease with a region has much longer lasting, negatively impactful consequences than most people realize." Monkeypox is making headlines right now, Gilmer told NPR via email, partly because some populations are being exposed to it for the first time. Other candidates for new names, she says, include Ebola and the Spanish flu. There's been a desire to fix 'offensive and inaccurate' namesĮven before COVID-19, there's been pressure to rename viruses and diseases, says Christin Gilmer, the global health lead at Global Health Labs, a nonprofit based in Seattle.
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This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak.Ĭynthia S. "Second, 'monkeypox' gives a wrong impression that the disease is only transmitted by monkeys. Therefore, 'monkeypox' is racist and stigmatizes Blacks." "First, there is a long history of referring to Blacks as monkeys. Ifeanyi Nsofor, a global health equity advocate and senior New Voices fellow at the Aspen Institute.
"Monkeypox should be renamed for two major reasons," said Dr. Nearly seven weeks after the World Health Organization said it will change the name of the monkeypox disease, agreeing with scientists who called it "discriminatory and stigmatizing," the controversial label doesn't seem to be going anywhere.Ĭritics say the name "monkeypox" plays into racist stereotypes about Black people, Africa and LGBTQ people - and, they note, it falsely suggests monkeys are the main source of the virus. People protest during a rally calling for more government action to combat the spread of monkeypox at Foley Square on Jin New York City.