The World Health Organization has changed the name of the infectious disease formally known as Monkeypox, following a number of complaints about the name.
The disease was a cause for concern earlier this year, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealing that the US has had 29,248 cases in 2022 at the time of writing, resulting in the deaths of 14 people.
Additionally, there have been 80,850 cases worldwide.
The CDC explains that Monkeypox is a rare disease that comes from the same family of viruses as the smallpox virus. They continue that the source of the disease remains unknown, but African rodents and non-human primates such as monkeys could harbor the virus and be infectious to humans.
Now that the disease appears to be slowing down with case numbers dropping, the World Health Organization (WHO) is rebranding the disease "Mpox" following complaints against the original name, as reported by Sky News.
The complaints received by the organization reportedly claimed the name was "racist" and misleading. During an interview with NPR in August, Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor, a global health equity advocate and senior New Voices fellow at the Aspen Institute gave two reasons why the disease needed a renaming.
He said that there is a long history of referring to Black people as "monkeys", so the name of the disease is both racist and stigmatizing. The second reason, he adds, is that the name gives the impression that the disease is only transmitted by monkeys, and this is false and can lead to a misunderstanding of its seriousness.
Sky News reports that the name "Mpox" was proposed by the men's health organization REZO. The director supports the claim that moving away from monkey imagery would help people take the disease more seriously.
The WHO confirms that both the original name and the new Mpox will be used simultaneously for one year until "'monkeypox' is phased out."
The organization adds: "When the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings, and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO.
"In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name."
Mpox will become the preferred name after a transition period of one year.
A full list of symptoms of the disease can be found on the CDC website.
