The city of York City asked the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday to change the monkeypox disease to keep patients from being stigmatized and delay seeking treatment. New York has seen more cases of the disease that has been declared a global health emergency by the WHO declared an emergency in the world health system on the weekend more than other cities within the United States, with 1,092 cases of the disease so far.
“We have a growing concern for the potentially devastating and stigmatizing effects that the messaging around the ‘monkeypox’ virus can have on… already vulnerable communities,” New York City public health commissioner Ashwin Vasan said in a letter addressed to WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, dated Tuesday.
The WHO has floated the possibility that it could change the name this virus that is linked to the smallpox virus which has been eradicated at a press conference last month, which Vasan stated in the letter.
Vasan spoke of his “painful and racist history within which terminology like (monkeypox) is rooted for communities of color.”
He also emphasized that monkeypox does not originate from primates, as the name implies He also spoke about the negative consequences of misinformation in the early times of the HIV epidemic, as well as the prejudice confronted by Asian communities, which was further aggravated by the former President Donald Trump calling COVID-19 the “China virus.”
“Continuing to use the term ‘monkeypox’ to describe the current outbreak may reignite these traumatic feelings of racism and stigma-particularly for Black people and other people of color, as well as members of the LGBTQIA+ communities, and it is possible that they may avoid engaging in vital health care services because of it,” Vasan explained.
Anyone can be susceptible to contracting the virus, which has been prevalent for a long time across Central as well as Western Africa, but so far, the spread of this disease in Europe in Europe and the United States has been mostly focused on men who had sexual relations with others.
The first signs could be an increase in temperature and fatigue and fatigue, followed a few days after by a rash, which may turn into painful liquid-filled pores that can persist for a few weeks before changing into the form of scabs, which then disappear.
There have been no deaths reported yet in Europe or in the United States.
The WHO has confirmed more than 16,000 infections identified in 75 countries to date this year the WHO reported on Monday.
A few doses of a vaccine against smallpox that has been that protects against monkeypox are known as Jynneos are being given throughout New York, mostly to gay and bisexual males.