'To prevent offending anyone's culture,' WHO announces new names for variants of monkeypox virus

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the current strains of the monkeypox virus have a new nomenclature. The WHO stated in a statement that this is done to prevent offending anyone's culture or social norms. The new names were chosen by a group of international specialists gathered by the WHO, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Experts will now refer to the former West African clade as Clade II and the former Congo Basin clade (group of variations) in Central Africa as Clade I. The latter has two sub-clades, Clade IIa and Clade IIb, the latter of which had the majority of the variations circulating during the 2022 pandemic.

The new names for the clades should be adopted immediately, the global health organisation stated.

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The WHO advised that in order to avoid offending any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, or ethnic groups and to minimise any negative effects on trade, travel, tourism, or animal welfare, newly found viruses, linked diseases, and virus variants should be given names.

When the monkeypox virus was detected for the first time in 1958, it was given a name. Major varieties were classified according to the geographical areas in which they were believed to be prevalent.

The current multi-country monkeypox outbreak was formally declared a public health emergency of worldwide concern by the WHO in late July.

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According to the WHO's situation update on the outbreak, which was released on Wednesday, there have been 27,814 laboratory-confirmed cases of monkeypox globally, with Europe and the Americas being the most severely affected.

(With inputs from IANS)