"What's in a name?": Using mpox as a case study to understand the importance of communication, advocacy, and information accuracy in disease nomenclature.

ABSTRACT: Historically, many diseases have been named after the species or location of discovery, the discovering scientists, or the most impacted population. However, species-specific disease names often misrepresent the true reservoir; location-based disease names are frequently targeted with xenophobia; some of the discovering scientists have darker histories; and impacted populations have been stigmatized for this association. Acknowledging these concerns, the World Health Organization now proposes naming diseases after their causative pathogen or symptomatology. Recently, this guidance has been retrospectively applied to a disease at the center of an outbreak rife with stigmatization and misinformation: mpox (f.k.a. 'monkeypox'). This disease, historically endemic to west and central Africa, ha

SUBMITTER: Hulland EN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11230329 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature