By Eli Walsh. Bay City News.
The California Department of Public Health said it will refer to the virus as monkeypox in the first reference in a written communication and the abbreviation, pronounced M-pox, in all subsequent references. State officials will also call the virus MPX when speaking.
“The California Department of Public Health is aware of concerns about the stigma associated with the name monkeypox, including racist connotations,” said Dr. Tomas Aragon, state public health officer and director of CDPH.
"As such, CDPH has switched to using the acronym MPX while the World Health Organization explores renaming the disease," it said.
The WHO issued a set of best practices in 2015 for disease naming, recommending that geographic locations, names of people, species of animals or foods, and cultural, population or occupational references be avoided in colloquial names of viruses and diseases.
“This may seem like a trivial issue to some, but disease names really matter to the people directly affected,” said Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general from 2009 to 2016, in 2015.
"We have seen that certain disease names provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities, create unjustified barriers to travel and trade, and trigger the unnecessary killing of animals intended for food," Fukuda said.
As of Wednesday, 3,065 probable and confirmed cases of MPX have been reported statewide, including in the 11-county Bay Area.
San Francisco continues to have the second-highest number of reported cases in the state with 656.
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