Monkeypox: everything you need to know about the disease
monkeypox – a close relative of smallpox – is a viral disease usually contracted by animal bites or consumption of poorly cooked meat, but it can spread from person to person through close contact. The first symptoms of infection can be chills, fatigue, fever and muscle aches – with more severe cases often presenting with a rash on the face and genitals that can spread elsewhere on the body before scabs form. The virus is known to cause serious illness in certain vulnerable groups, including young children, people with suppressed immune systems and pregnant women.
In July, the WHO declared the current global monkeypox outbreak an international emergency — with an estimated 31,000 cases worldwide.
The disease has been endemic in parts of central and western Africa for decades, but has only started causing major outbreaks around the world in recent months.
Outside of Africa, most cases have affected men who have sex with other men – with the rollout of vaccines targeting this community.
On 8 August 2022, the UK Health Security Agency reported 2,914 confirmed and 103 highly probable cases of monkeypox in the UK, the majority of which were discovered in England.
MONKEYPOX to be renamed, World Health Organization has announced (Image: Getty Images/NIAID via AP)
Monkeypox got its name when the disease was first identified in 1958 in research monkeys (Image: Express.co.uk)
Monkeypox got its name when the disease was first diagnosed in monkeys in 1958 in a laboratory in Copenhagen, Denmark.
However, monkeys are not thought to be a natural reservoir for the virus – scientists suspect this could be found among rodent populations.
In a statement on Friday, a WHO spokesperson said the decision to rename monkeypox was made this week after a meeting of experts — and in line with current best practice for disease nomenclature.
These practices, they added, are intended “to avoid offending cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups”.
They also strive to “minimize the negative impact on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare”.
READ MORE: WHO director ready to declare monkeypox outbreak a global emergency
A WHO spokesperson said the decision to rename Monkeypox was taken this week (Image: Yann Forget/Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA)
Severe cases often present with a rash on the face and genitals that can spread elsewhere (Image: Getty Images)
The WHO continued: “Assigning new names to existing diseases is the responsibility of [the] WHO under the International Classification of Diseases and the WHO Family of International Health-related Classifications.
They added that the WHO is “holding an open consultation on a new disease name for monkeypox.
“Anyone who wants to propose new names can do so here (see ICD-11, Adding proposals).”
It is not yet known whether WHO officials have a timetable in mind for announcing the new name for monkeypox.
dr. Aspen Institute’s Ifeanyi Nsofor, an advocate for global health equality, said: NPR: “Monkeypox needs to be renamed for two main reasons.
“First, there is a long history of referring to blacks as monkeys. That’s why ‘monkey pox’ is racist and stigmatizes blacks.
“Secondly, ‘monkeypox’ gives the wrong impression that the disease is only transmitted by monkeys. This is wrong.”
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Governments around the world roll out vaccines to at-risk communities (Image: Getty Images)
On Friday, the WHO also announced that to avoid stigmatization, it had also renamed two clades of the virus so that they use Roman numerals instead of geographic areas.
(A clade is the name given to a group of organisms made up of one common ancestor and all of its lineal descendants.)
A WHO spokesperson said: “An agreement has been reached to now refer to the former Congo Basin (Central Africa) clade as Clade one (I) and the former West African clade as Clade two (II).”
Subclade IIb, they explained, primarily refers to the group of variants that have been dominant in the current global monkeypox outbreak.
The WHO continued: “Gender naming will be proposed by scientists as the outbreak evolves. Experts will be convened again if necessary.
“The new names for the clades should take effect immediately as work continues on the disease and virus names.”
They added that “naming virus species is the responsibility of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses, which is in the process of naming the monkeypox virus.”
The former Congo Basin and the West African clades of Monkeypox are not the only diseases that take their name from the regions where they first originated.
Other examples include Japanese encephalitis, the Marburg virus (named after the German city in the federal state of Hesse where an outbreak occurred in late 1967), the Spanish flu and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome.
To date, the WHO has not publicly put forward the idea of changing the name of any of these diseases.