WHO Declares Global Emergency over New Mpox Outbreak(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
WHO Declares Global Emergency over New Mpox Outbreak
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/14/health/mpox-who-emergency-africa.html
14 comments
>formerly called monkeypox
When, who and why did its name change?
When, who and why did its name change?
I remember it. The name was changed during the pandemic of 2022, because in the west it was mainly affecting the gay men and LGBT associations thought that having "monkey" in the name of a disease affecting mainly gay men was stigmatising and pushed for a name change, and the WHO accepted.
fear of correlation to a racial slur
I suppose it was a strange choice of name in the first place.
It was identified in a monkeys originally, hence the name
Otherwise people will start killing monkeys indiscriminately.
According to Wikipedia the virus is still called "monkeypox virus" and the disease "mpox disease". One reason for the change may have been to have different names for these different things.
*formerly
Formally means the opposite, and I had to check the article to check what you meant.
Formally means the opposite, and I had to check the article to check what you meant.
Autocorrect…
> Until recently, it spread mainly through consumption of contaminated meat or close contact with infected animals and people. Most of the deaths have been in children, who in this region of Africa are already beset by malnutrition and infectious diseases like cholera, measles and polio.
> Should the outbreak spread globally, children in developed countries are likely to be less vulnerable to severe illness, experts have said.
> Last year, for the first time, scientists discovered sexual transmission of this version of mpox, with cases split about equally among young men and women. According to genetic analyses, sometime around September, the virus gained mutations that enabled it to spread more readily among people. It has done so partly through heterosexual prostitution.