Western Standard - June 16, 2022


WHO renames monkeypox because scientists call it “discriminatory”

Mentioned
COVID-19
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Episode Stats


Length

2 minutes

Words per minute

135.53

Word count

311

Sentence count

16


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Monkeypox is a serious viral illness that normally does not leave the Central and West African regions. However, this new outbreak is being spread from human to human. The World Health Organization is concerned about this version of the virus because it s not behaving how it has in previous outbreaks.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 The World Health Organization decided to rename Monkeypox because some researchers felt the name
00:00:05.700 is discriminatory. The researchers want a name that is non-discriminatory and uses non-stigmatizing
00:00:12.740 nomenclature. Monkeypox is a serious viral illness that normally does not leave the Central
00:00:19.060 and West African regions. The 29 biologists and scientists wrote an open letter to the World
00:00:24.960 Health Organization Director General in viriology and online form. They said,
00:00:31.120 In the context of the current global outbreak, continued reference to and nomenclature of this
00:00:36.840 virus being African is not only inaccurate but is also discriminatory and stigmatizing,
00:00:43.120 wrote the researchers. The researchers also criticized the World Health Organization photos
00:00:48.080 used for the disease as most feature Africans stricken with monkeypox. The World Health
00:00:54.540 Organization Director General announced the World Health Organization would have the new names as
00:01:00.200 soon as possible. The researchers suggested the name be HMPXV with MPXV representing monkeypox and the H
00:01:11.000 for the human version. Just like with COVID-19 and its variants, the researchers want to classify
00:01:17.000 different lineages with letters and numbers depending on where the outbreaks occurred. Monkeypox spreads
00:01:23.360 primarily through contact with animals such as primates and rodents. However, this new outbreak is
00:01:29.880 being spread from human to human with nearly 1,600 cases in 39 countries and 72 reported deaths.
00:01:38.160 The World Health Organization is concerned about this version of the virus because it's not behaving
00:01:43.700 how it has in previous outbreaks. The Director General of the World Health Organization said,
00:01:49.240 the global outbreak of monkeypox is clearly unusual and concerning. A monkeypox infection lasts two to
00:01:56.560 four weeks with flu-like symptoms, swollen lymph nodes, and pox which are fluid-filled bumps on the skin.
00:02:04.040 Now, the virus can be treated with antiviral medicines. According to the World Health Organization
00:02:09.760 officials, some monkeypox cases can be confused for sexually transmitted infections such as herpes or syphilis.