2024-08-16 10:22:15
In recent years, people have repeatedly become infected with Mpox. Why it was previously called monkeypox and what is behind the name change.
Mpox is a viral disease that was originally transmitted from animals to humans. The name of the disease has only existed for about two years. How did this come about?
Mpox used to be called “monkeypox” because the virus was first accidentally detected in monkeys in the 1950s. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been recommending renaming it “Mpox” since the end of 2022. According to the WHO, the reason for this change is that the term “monkeypox” can be perceived as racist and stigmatizing. In addition, the name “Mpox” was chosen because it is easy to pronounce in other languages.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) in Germany have followed the recommendation and have since referred to the disease as Mpox. Instead of “monkeypox rash”, “Mpox rash” is used.
The WHO is responsible for assigning names to new and, in exceptional cases, existing diseases. In general, it no longer wants to name diseases after animals or countries in which they were discovered.
Although the viruses were first isolated from a colony of squirrel monkeys, the old name “monkeypox” is simply a misnomer. Monkeys can be intermediate hosts, but they do not seem to play a role in transmission to humans, as the virus cannot develop in them. The Mpox viruses occur naturally in rodents.
Even after the outbreak of the then novel coronavirus in Wuhan (China), the WHO worked hard on a neutral name to prevent the initial names such as China virus or Wuhan virus from becoming established. The disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was called Covid-19 – an abbreviation for Coronavirus Disease. The number 19 stands for the first occurrence of the disease in 2019.