PublishedJuly 27, 2022, 9:28 PM
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monkey poxNew York wants to change the name of the epidemic, deemed “racist and stigmatizing”
For the American city, this risks pushing patients to isolate themselves rather than seek care. This is why she asks the WHO to rename the virus.
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Informational posters are displayed on tables ahead of the opening of a mass monkeypox vaccination site at the Bushwick Educational Campus in Brooklyn on July 17, 2022 in New York City.
–AFP
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New York City (United States) on Tuesday asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to rename monkeypox, “monkeypox” in English, a name deemed stigmatizing and which risks pushing patients to s isolate rather than seek care.
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Branding name
“We are increasingly concerned about the potentially devastating and stigmatizing effects that messaging around the monkeypox virus can have on (of) already vulnerable communities,” writes the New York City Health Commissioner, Ashwin Vasan, in a letter to WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The latter had also mentioned this possible change in mid-June, as Mr. Vasan recalls in his letter.
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According to the health commissioner, this “terminology” is also “rooted in a racist and painful history for communities of color”. In his letter, he recalls the negative effects of false information during the appearance of the AIDS virus (HIV) or of the racism suffered by Asian communities after the Covid-19 pandemic, which US President Donald Trump had described as “Chinese virus”.
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Maximum alert
“To continue to use the term monkey pox to describe the current epidemic may rekindle these traumatic feelings of racism and stigma – especially for black people and other people of color, as well as members of LGBTQIA+ communities, and they may avoid resorting to vital health care services for this reason,” adds Ashwin Vasan.
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Anyone can catch monkeypox, but since its appearance in Europe and the United States, the virus has spread overwhelmingly among men with sex with men. New York is the most affected city in the United States in terms of the number of cases, with 1,092 contaminations detected since the start of the epidemic.
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Since Saturday, WHO is on high alert on the epidemic, while the vaccine Bavarian Nordic just approved in the European Union. In Switzerland, the Federal Office of Public Health (OFSP) estimates thatthere is currently no immediate need to adapt the current strategy to fight the virus.
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The WHO has triggered its highest level of alert.
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(AFP)
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