The campaign to rename monkeypox gets complicated
Renaming monkeypox — the virus and the disease — is proving more challenging than some expected.
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Monkeypox is monkeypox. But that’s going to change.
A subcommittee of the ICTV that is responsible for revising the names of the various poxvirus species is in the process of finalizing a proposal for new binomial names for all the poxviruses. Within the next month or two the proposed names will be circulated to the poxvirus research community for feedback before being finalized by next June, the ICTV’s deadline for this work.
When that process is completed, monkeypox is very likely going to become Orthopoxvirus monkeypox.
Monkeypox clade names
The path to changing the names of the clades or strains of monkeypox is the easiest and the most likely to happen in the near term. But even here, there are some challenges.The existing clades are known as the Congo Basin and West African clades. The former has historically been associated with more severe disease, with a fatality rate of about 10%. The latter, which is responsible for the current multi-national outbreak, causes milder disease and has an estimated fatality rate of between 1% and 3% in the African countries where it is endemic. (The current outbreak has drawn that estimate into question. Out of more than 21,000 cases, only three deaths have been reported to date outside of Central and Western Africa.)
In early June, a group of scientists, led by several from Africa, called for the renaming of the clades, saying that linking the disease to Africa was stigmatizing and discriminatory. Their commentary, posted on the website virological.org, argued that the clades should be given neutral names; they suggested clade 1 for Congo Basin viruses and clade 2 for those from West Africa.
They also proposed a third clade, for viruses from the current international outbreak and from imported cases detected in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Singapore in recent years. The group then went further, suggesting that changes in the genetic makeup of the outbreak viruses and in transmission patterns argue for naming this an entirely new virus. They proposed the name hMPXV — short for human monkeypox virus — as an interim moniker.
