BETHLEHEM, Pa. - The World Health Organization is changing the name of monkeypox over the next year.
The new name will be mpox.
- The World Health Organization is changing the name of monkeypox over the next year
- The new name will be mpox
- The two names will be used simultaneously over the next year so as to not confuse people
It’s a viral disease that causes a painful, bumpy rash on the hands, feet and in the mouth, among other places. Monkeypox is transmitted by close contact with an infected person and has primarily affected men who have sex with men.
The infectious disease was named in the 1970s after being found in lap monkeys, which is how the name came about. Since then, the name Monkeypox is thought to be both racist and stigmatizing.
"Stigma is always a negative," said Dr. Jeffrey Jahre, senior vice president of medical and academic affairs section chief emeritus of infectious diseases at St. Luke’s University Health Network.
"It will prevent people from coming forward because they obviously would be afraid to be identified,”
On the topic of stigma, Jahre went on to say, “it allows people to be unnecessarily persecuted and groups to be persecuted for diseases, which it clearly is not in anyone's interest. So for all these reasons, it's a good idea to have anything that is certainly racist or stigmatizing be eliminated."
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Lisa Spacek said it’s crucial for the medical community to update the names of viruses, such as monkeypox, as new information is learned about them.
"Stigma is always a negative. It will prevent people from coming forward because they obviously would be afraid to be identified."Dr. Jeffrey Jahre, senior vice president of medical and academic affairs, St. Luke’s University Health Network
“It's really important to respect that as times change that we use different words to describe something, because we understand it better, it's more accurate and then we can get rid of some of those words that really, they're not helpful to us anymore,” Spacek said.
She is the chief medical officer at Novus Medical Services, a sexual health center with locations in Bethlehem, Lehighton, Stroudsburg, Doylestown and Bridgeport.
Speck said as the outbreak peaked over the summer, doctors focused on treating and vaccinating those at risk.
"The first priority for everybody is just to take care of the difficulty at hand," she said. "So the name of it wasn't the problem at the time, it was the infection. It was the painful rash that people were having.”
Now, as cases are declining, they can switch their focus to changing the name to a more appropriate one.
New York City’s health department in October had announced it would refer to the infectious viral disease as MPV.
The World Health Organization said the names monkeypox and mpox will be used simultaneously over the next year and monkeypox will be phased out so as to not confuse people.
Dr. Jahre said cases are on the decline across the country.
"There are roughly about 80,000 cases worldwide in about 110 countries," he said. "The United States actually had, for all practical purposes, the most cases. Currently, the number stands at about 32,000 and there have been about 20 deaths."
In Pennsylvania, there have been about 900 cases, with the majority in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas.
