WHO welcomes suggestions to swap monkey pox for Trump-22 or Mpox

Poxy McPoxface, Trump-22 or Mpox: these are some of the ideas sent by the public to the WHO (World Health Organization), which is looking for a new name for monkeypox, also called monkeypox.

Often disease names are chosen behind closed doors by a technical committee, but the WHO decided this time to open the process to the public. After a slow start, dozens of submissions have now been made by a range of contributors, including academics, doctors and a gay community activist.

Suggestions range from the technical (OPOXID-22, introduced by emergency physician Jeremy Faust of Harvard Medical School) to the ridiculous (Poxy McPoxface, introduced by Andrew Yi in allusion to Boaty McBoatface, which was almost the name of a British polar poll after a popular vote).

Pressure is building for a new name for the disease, in part because critics say the current one is misleading, as monkeys are not the virus’s original host. In June, a group of leading scientists released a document taking a stand in favor of a name that was “neutral, non-discriminatory and non-stigmatising”, amid fears that the name could be used in a racist way.

Until this year, monkeypox was mainly spread in a group of countries in West and Central Africa.

“It is very important that we find a new name for monkeypox, because this is the best practice to not create any offense to an ethnic group, a region, a country, an animal,” said WHO spokeswoman Fadela. Chaib, this Tuesday (16).

One of the most popular names submitted so far is Mpox, presented by Samuel Miriello, director of men’s health organization Rézo, which is already using the name in its outreach campaigns in Montreal, Canada.

Another proposal, Trump-22, appeared to refer to former US President Donald Trump — who used the controversial term “Chinese virus” for the novel coronavirus — but its author said it stands for “Toxic Eruption of Unrecognized Mysterious Origin. of 2022”, in its acronym in English. Suggestions mocking the gay community had previously been posted, but were later removed from the WHO website.

WHO has a mandate to rename existing diseases under the International Classification of Diseases. The institution has already renamed monkeypox virus variants, or clades, changing them from African regions to Roman numerals. The entity said it would decide between proposals “according to their scientific validity, acceptability, pronounceability (and) whether they can be used in different languages”.

Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 and named after the animal being the first to show symptoms. The WHO declared the current outbreak a public health emergency last month, having reported more than 32,000 cases in more than 80 countries.