New York City asks WHO to find another name for monkeypox, deemed stigmatizing – Liberation

The US city’s health commissioner is calling on the World Health Organization to rename the disease, fearing the “devastating” effects on “already vulnerable” communities.–

Don’t say “monkey pox” anymore (“monkeypox” in OV). This is essentially what the city of New York is asking for, which on Tuesday July 26 called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to rename this disease, whose name it considers stigmatizing. “We are increasingly concerned about the potentially devastating and stigmatizing effects that messaging around the “monkey pox” virus can have on (on) already vulnerable communities.“Worried the health commissioner of the city on the east coast of the United States, Ashwin Vasan, in a letter to the director general of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

In his missive, the municipal official recalls the negative effects of false information during the appearance of the AIDS virus (HIV) or the racism suffered by Asian communities with the Covid-19 pandemic, which American President Donald Trump had qualified for “chinese virus».

Ashwin Vasan argues in particular that the “terminology“of the monkey is”rooted in a racist and painful history for communities of color». «Continuing to use the term “monkey pox” to describe the current outbreak may rekindle those traumatic feelings of racism and stigma — especially for black people and other people of color, as well as members of LGBTQIA+ communities”, he writes. The risk, according to him: that the persons concerned “avoid using life-saving health care services for this reason».

Anyone can catch monkeypox, which is transmitted through direct or indirect physical contact (especially with sheets). But, since its appearance in Europe and the United States, the virus has spread overwhelmingly among men having homosexual relations. Hence the fear of a resurgence of homophobia. In New York, the most affected city in the United States in terms of the number of cases, the disease has spread rapidly: 1,092 contaminations have been detected there since the start of the epidemic.

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