WHO renames two monkeypox variants to avoid geographic references - The Hill

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Saturday that it renamed variants of the virus monkeypox as it looks to counter concerns about the original naming conventions.

A global expert group decided on the new naming convention “as part of ongoing efforts to align the names of the monkeypox disease, virus, and variants—or clades—with current best practices.”.

The WHO is also workshopping new names for the monkeypox virus as a whole, including the disease it causes, after outcry over potential stigmatization.

The name change for monkeypox could also correct assumptions about the origin of the virus, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported is unknown, despite monkeybox being discovered in 1958 in a group of monkeys kept for research.