New York call on the WHO to change the name of monkeypox
New York city health authorities fear the moniker of virus could stigmatise sufferers who might hold off seeking care.
New York City has asked the World Health Organisation to rename the monkeypox virus to avoid stigmatising patients who might then hold off on seeking care.
New York has suffered more cases of the disease, which the WHO declared a global health emergency at the weekend, than any other city in the US, with 1092 infections detected so far.
“We have a growing concern for the potentially devastating and stigmatising effects that the messaging around the ‘monkeypox’ virus can have on … already vulnerable communities,” New York public health commissioner Ashwin Vasan said in a letter to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The WHO floated the idea last month of changing the name of the virus, which is related to the eradicated smallpox virus, a proposal Dr Vasan mentioned in his letter.
Dr Vasan referenced the “painful and racist history within which terminology like (monkeypox) is rooted for communities of colour”.
He pointed out monkeypox did not originate in primates, as the name might suggest, and recalled the negative effects of misinformation during the early days of the HIV epidemic and the racism faced by Asian communities that was exacerbated by former US president Donald Trump calling Covid-19 the “China virus”.
“Continuing to use the term ‘monkeypox’ to describe the current outbreak may reignite these traumatic feelings of racism and stigma – particularly for black people and other people of colour, as well as members of the LGBTQIA+ communities, and it is possible that they may avoid engaging in vital health care services because of it,” Dr Vasan said.
Anyone is susceptible to contracting monkeypox, which has long been endemic in Africa, but so far its spread in Europe and the US has been mostly concentrated among men who have sex with other men.
AFP
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