By Eli Walsh. Bay City News.
The California Department of Public Health said it will refer to the virus as monkeypox on 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 monkeypox name, 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 changing the name of the disease," he said.
WHO issued a set of best practices in 2015 for disease naming, recommending that geographic locations, names of people, animal or food species, and cultural, population or occupational references be avoided in colloquial names for viruses and diseases.
"This may seem like a trivial problem to some, but disease names really matter to the people directly affected," Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general from 2009 to 2016, said in 2015.
"We have seen certain disease names provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities, create unwarranted barriers to travel and trade, and trigger the unnecessary killing of food animals," Fukuda said.
As of Wednesday, 3,065 probable and confirmed cases of MPX have been reported statewide, including in the 11-county Bay Area metropolitan area.
San Francisco continues to have the second highest number of reported cases in the state with 656.
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