Global Health: We are studying changing the name of monkeypox

The World Health Organization will hold an emergency meeting next week to discuss the outbreak of monkeypox, and whether its name should be changed, according to the Voice of America website.

This comes against the backdrop of requests made by health experts, a few days ago, to avoid stigmatizing the disease with one animal species or one continent without another.

About a week ago, a group of scientists said in a statement, "In the context of the current global outbreak, the persistent reference to and classification of this virus as being African is not only inaccurate but discriminatory and stigmatizing."

The most obvious manifestation of this stigma, the specialists went on, is the use of images of African patients to portray smallpox lesions in the mainstream media.

Recently, the African Foreign Press Association issued a statement urging the global media to stop using images of Africans to highlight the outbreak in Europe.”

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