The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially changed the name of monkeypox to MPOX and MOX. The two names will be used concurrently for one year, while the name ‘monkeypox’ will be dropped.
Global experts define “mox” and “mpox” after taking into consideration scientific suitability, current usage level, and pronunciation ability among other factors.
“The naming of new and, particularly exceptionally, existing diseases is the responsibility of WHO under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the WHO Family of International Health Classifications through a consultative process that includes the WHO member states,” WHO wrote in a statement. the official site was quoted on Tuesday (11/29/2022).
Through the WHO official website, there are reasons to change the name of the disease. This serves to allay concerns raised by experts about the confusion caused by name changes during a global epidemic.
The WHO recommendations regarding this name change are as follows:
- The adoption of a new English synonym mpox for this disease.
- Mpox will be the chosen term, replacing monkeypox, after a one-year transition period. This serves to allay concerns raised by experts about the confusion caused by name changes during a global epidemic. This also gives time to complete the ICD update process and to update WHO publications.
- Mpox synonyms will be included in ICD-10 online in the coming days. It will be part of the official version of the ICD-11 in 2023, which is the current global standard for health data, clinical documentation and statistical aggregation.
- The term “monkeypox” will remain a searchable term in the ICD, to match historical information.
- Considerations for recommendations include rationale, scientific suitability, level of current use, pronunciation, usability in multiple languages, absence of geographic or zoological references, and ease of retrieval of historical scientific information.
In general, this designation seeks to avoid associating any disease or virus with a country, region, animal or ethnic group.
Monkey Pox, which eventually officially changed to Mpox, discovered in 1958 and named after the first animal to show symptoms, was spreading mainly in a group of countries in West and Central Africa until this year.
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