The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the voice of the country’s nearly 3,000 local health departments, joins the World Health Organization (WHO) in adopting the recommended name change of monkeypox. The organization proposed changing the name of the virus to ‘mpox’, in an announcement released on November 28. Both names will be used simultaneously for one year while “monkeypox” is phased out.

Mpox was discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research. Despite being named “monkeypox,” the source of the disease remains unknown. However, African rodents and non-human primates may harbor the virus and possibly infect people.

The first human case of mpox was recorded in 1970. Prior to the 2022 outbreak, almost all mpox cases in people outside of Africa were linked to international travel to countries where the disease commonly occurs or through imported animals. These cases occurred on multiple continents.

When the mpox outbreak reached the United States earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, and in communities were reported to WHO.

Under the authority of International Classification of Diseases (ICD), WHO is the organization responsible for the naming of new and existing diseases. The motivation to change the name is in hopes to mitigate the rise in racist and stigmatizing language associated with the virus.

WHO hosted and facilitated consultations to gather views from an array of experts from the medical and scientific fields. With representatives from 45 different countries government authorities, WHO lead discussions on the name change, in hopes to mitigate the rise in racist and stigmatizing language associated with the virus.

“Our vision is not health for some,” said World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “It’s not health for most. It’s health for all: rich and poor, able, and disabled, old and young, urban and rural, citizen and refugee. Everyone, everywhere.”

Following the consultations, and further discussions with Dr Tedros, WHO recommends the following:

• Adoption of the new synonym mpox in English for the disease.
• Mpox will become a preferred term, replacing monkeypox, after a transition period of one year. This serves to mitigate the concerns raised by experts about confusion caused by a name change in the midst of a global outbreak. It also gives time to complete the ICD update process and to update WHO publications.
• The synonym mpox will be included in the ICD-10 online in the coming days. It will be a part of the official 2023 release of ICD-11, which is the current global standard for health data, clinical documentation, and statistical aggregation.
• The term “monkeypox” will remain a searchable term in ICD, to match historic information.

Usually, the ICD updating process can take up to several years. In this case, the process was accelerated to address this concern, however standard protocol was followed.

Following the announcement, the Biden administration voiced its support for the change.

“We welcome the change by the World Health Organization. We must do all we can to break down barriers to public health, and reducing stigma associated with disease is one critical step in our work to end mpox.”

NACCHO looks forward to continuing to work with national and state level partners to enhance and support the critical work of local health departments in addressing mpox outbreaks.